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Press-ready PDFs

Press-ready PDFs are usually the preferred format for commercial lithographic printers when supplying artwork. Press-ready PDFs differ from standard PDFs in that they must meet a certain criteria in order for the file to print without problems. Standard PDFs may include colors that may not print correctly or graphics that are fine to view on screen but will print at a very low quality.

A few important points about generating press-ready PDFs:

  • Embedded fonts Embedding fonts into the PDF is necessary for the fonts to render correctly for print. This means that the fonts used in the document, being present on the designer’s machine or server generating the PDF will be embedded into the PDF. If the fonts are not embedded within the PDF, they may appear correct to clients as they will be present on that system but when viewed on a computer (or processed on a printer's server) without the necessary fonts, substitutions are often made, and missing fonts are usually replaced with the nearest font available.
  • Bleed Bleed is crucial to any design in which the pictures and/or color run to the edge of the page. This is one of the most common errors seen when receiving PDFs that are not correct for print. A press-ready PDF will be bigger in size, both in height and width, than the printed book because of these bleeds. The bleed is trimmed away when finishing. You will receive exact specifications for different product types (book formats), and they are also available in the Client dashboard.
  • Images Images in a press-ready PDF are recommended to be at least 300ppi at the size they will be printed. Images less than this optimal resolution still may print satisfactorily, but this depends on the content of the image. In other words, an image of a sunset may print beautifully at 150ppi, but an image of fine detail of jewelry may look very pixelated at 150ppi. This is why we recommend an image resolution of 300ppi, and we provide low-resolution warnings for images under 150ppi.