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Lesson 10: Preflighting, Printing and Creating PDFs from InDesign
What you’ll learn in this lesson:
- Preflighting your document
- Packaging your document for distribution
- Creating and customizing a PDF file
- Printing a proof
Designing your document is only half the job. You still need to deliver it, whether to a commercial printer, the Web, or colleagues and coworkers. To help you, InDesign offers multiple methods for proofing and packaging your files, as well as flexible export controls to PDF.
Starting up
Before starting, make sure that your tools and panels are consistent by resetting your preferences. See “Resetting the InDesign workspace and preferences” in the Starting up section of this book.
You will work with several files from the id10lessons folder in this lesson. Make sure that you have copied the id10lessons folder onto your hard drivefrom the Digital Classroom Books website. You can download the files fromhttp://www.DigitalClassroomBooks.com/epub/indesigncs6. See “Downloading lesson files” in the Starting up section of this book. This lesson may be easier to follow if the id10lessons folder is on your desktop.
For this lesson, you need either Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader to view the PDF files you will create. If necessary, you can download the free Adobe Reader at get.adobe.com/reader.
The project
To sample the PDF and print-related controls offered by InDesign, you will prepare a car ad for delivery to multiple customers. You’ll preflight the document using the InDesign Preflight feature and then package the document to send to a printer or other user. Finally, you will generate a PDF file of the complete project.
Package inventory
Before you send your files to a printer or other service provider, in order to print your job professionally, it’s important that you check the file for common errors that can occur during the design phase of your project. If your files aren’t prepared to the required specifications, your job could be delayed or, even worse, reproduced incorrectly. The InDesign CS6 Live Preflight feature enables you to check all the mechanics of your file to ensure that everything is in working order. You can even define custom Preflight profiles in CS6 that will preflight your document to your or your printers’ specific needs.
For example, say you’re planning to submit an ad for the new IDCS6 sports car to a newspaper. In this exercise, you’ll use Package to see the Package Inventory of the file, and then you’ll define a Preflight setting to see how well your ad complies with the newspaper’s specifications.
1. Choose File > Open, navigate to the id10lessons folder, and select CarAd.indd. Click Open.
2. Choose File > Package. InDesign analyzes the document, and displays a summary of its findings in the Package Inventory dialog box. For more information on a specific category, click its name in the list on the left side of the dialog box.
The Package Inventory dialog box displays detailed information about your file, and flags potential errors that could cause problems.
3. From the list on the left side of the dialog box, choose Fonts. The right side of the dialog box now lists all the fonts used in your document as well as their format and status. If the status is OK, the font is loaded onto your system and recognized by InDesign. A status of Missing indicates that the font cannot be found. Because this lesson file was created using fonts installed with InDesign, all your fonts should say OK.
4. Choose Links and Images from the list on the left side of the dialog box. This section displays information about the images that are used within your document. At the top of this dialog box is a caution icon (
), indicating that InDesign found a potential problem, specifically that one of the images uses the RGB color space. Most printing companies require images to be submitted in the CMYK color space; ask your printer for their specifications prior to sending your files.
), indicating that InDesign found a potential problem, specifically that one of the images uses the RGB color space. Most printing companies require images to be submitted in the CMYK color space; ask your printer for their specifications prior to sending your files. You can fix this error manually by opening the RGB file in Adobe Photoshop and converting it to CMYK. In addition, you can carefully check the color conversion options set within InDesign to ensure that when output, the colors would convert properly based on your printers specifications. |
The Links and Images section also indicates the state of your images, linked or unlinked, as well as the actual versus effective resolutions of your images.
Actual versus effective resolution
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The resolution of an image is indicated by the number of pixels per inch (ppi) that make up the image—a seemingly simple concept that can be a bit complicated. As a general rule, the higher the resolution of an image, the higher its quality. Most images that you see when browsing the Internet are 72 ppi or 96 ppi, which is the standard screen resolution of most monitors. For high-quality printing, however, image resolution should generally be around 300 ppi.
To further complicate things, the Package window’s Links and Images section lists two different numbers at the bottom: actual ppi and effective ppi. Actual ppi is the actual resolution of the file that you are placing into InDesign. The effective ppi is the resolution of the image after it has been scaled in InDesign. For example, if you place a 300-ppi image in your document and then scale it 200 percent, the effective resolution becomes 150 ppi. As you increase the size of images in InDesign, the effective resolution decreases. The effective resolution is the number that you should pay most careful attention to, as it determines the quality at which the image is output.
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The Links and Images section of the Package Inventory dialog box.
5. Select Colors and Inks in the Package list to see which ink colors the document uses. This file uses a color called Pantone 187 C. Any color besides cyan, magenta, yellow, or black is considered a spot color or plate. You’ll learn more about these later in the “Separation Preview” section. Click the Cancel button to close the Package dialog box.
 For more information on Pantone colors, see Lesson 7, “Using Color in Your Documents.” |
Keep the file open, as you’ll need it for the next part of the lesson. Later in this lesson you’ll complete the packaging process and send it to the newspaper that is running the ad. Before doing this, you’ll Preflight the InDesign file to ensure that it meets the proper specifications.
6. Choose File > Save As. Navigate to the id10lessons folder and type CarAd_work.indd in the Name text field. Click Save.
Preflight checks
Like a pilot checking over their plane prior to takeoff, Preflight assesses your document, then reports potential problems—missing fonts, missing images, RGB (Red, Green, Blue) images, whether interactive elements are contained in the document and more—that could prevent a printer from outputting your job properly, or hinder a customer’s ability to view your file accurately. You can set up different profiles for all the intended destinations of your documents. For example, you could define a Preflight profile for all the documents you create that will end up as just PDFs on the Web, which are not intended for high-end output. You could define the profile to look for images with a resolution over 100 ppi. Whenever a photo was placed that had a higher effective resolution than 100 ppi, an error would appear in the Preflight panel. You can also see the Preflight status in the bottom-left area of your document window. In this exercise, you will define a new profile in the InDesign CS6 Preflight panel, and then check your document against the profile.
1. Choose Window > Output > Preflight. The Preflight panel opens. Right now, the Preflight profile is set to Basic, which looks only for broken or missing links to images, inaccessible URL links, missing fonts in the document, or overset text. You will now define a new profile that will look for RGB images in the document.
The Preflight panel in InDesign CS6.
2. From the Preflight panel menu (
), choose Define Profiles.
), choose Define Profiles.
Define Profiles is located in the Panel menu of the Preflight panel.
3. The Preflight Profiles dialog box opens. You cannot change the default Basic profile, so you will define a new one that looks for RGB color in your document. In the Profiles section on the left, click on the plus sign (
) at the bottom to create a new profile.
) at the bottom to create a new profile.
Make a new profile by clicking on the plus sign.
4. In the Profile Name text field at the top, select the text New Preflight Profile, then type CMYK.
5. In the Profile definition area, open the triangle next to Color by clicking on it. Now open the triangle next to Color Spaces and Modes Not Allowed. Check the box next to Color Spaces and Modes Not Allowed. Now check RGB.
Click on the triangle next to Color Spaces and Modes Not Allowed, then choose RGB.
6. Click Save, then click OK. You have now defined a new preflight profile.
7. Change the profile in the Preflight panel from Basic to the new CMYK profile you have just made. Notice that the bottom-left area of your document and the Preflight panel now state that there is one error.
8. Expand the triangles to see the error that InDesign has found from within the Preflight Error window. Click on the triangle next to Color, and then click on the triangle next to Color space not allowed. The Prefight profile you have just built will now give you an error message for any RGB color that might find its way into your document. To fix this issue, you would need to open the problem image in Photoshop and change the color space to CMYK. But that is only if you are sending a Package to a printer. When exporting a PDF file, certain PDF settings would automatically change the color space of the RGB images to CMYK.
The Preflight panel showing you that the red car has a color that is not allowed in this document.
Creating a preflight profile benefits you because that profile exists on your computer but if you send this document to another user, they will not have the benefit of being able to use this profile. That is unless you embed the profile into the active InDesign document so that it can be used by any user on any computer.
9. Click on the embed selected profile button (
) located directly to the right of the Profile drop-down menu to embed the profile into the document. The selected CMYK profile now contains the word (embedded) next to it.
) located directly to the right of the Profile drop-down menu to embed the profile into the document. The selected CMYK profile now contains the word (embedded) next to it.
Embedding the preflight profile makes the profile available to anyone who opens the document.
10. Switch the profile back to Basic and close the Preflight panel.
11. Choose File > Save.
Packaging your document
When you need to send your InDesign document out for review, alterations, or printing, you must be sure you’re sending all the necessary pieces. Without the font and image files used by the document, your coworkers or service provider can’t accurately see and reproduce the file as you intended. To avoid this frustrating scenario, turn to the InDesign Package feature. Package gathers all the document elements the recipient needs into one folder and even enables you to include an instruction file. In this exercise, you will use Package to collect the car ad’s fonts and graphics.
1. Choose File > Package. InDesign automatically runs Package Inventory and displays a warning if it finds problems. You’ve already seen the information in this dialog box earlier in this lesson, so simply click the Package button to proceed.
The Package dialog box displays a summary of your document including information about links, fonts, and color.
2. The Printing Instructions window allows you to enter contact information and basic instructions for your project. When packaging a file to send to another user, this information could be helpful and could assist the output provider in properly processing your job. Fill in the information, if desired, and then press the Continue button.
Entering information in the Printing Instructions window could provide useful information to the person who will be receiving your packaged file.
3. The Package Publication (Windows) or Create Package Folder (Mac OS) dialog box opens; here you choose what to include in the file Package, what to call it, and where to save it. Make sure the first three options are checked: Copy Fonts,Copy Linked Graphics, and Update Graphic Links in Package. All others should be unchecked. Type CarAd Folder in the Folder Name (Windows) or Save As (Mac OS) text field, choose Desktop from the Save in (Windows) or Where (Mac OS) drop-down menu, and click the Package button.
Use the Package Publication Folder dialog box to tell InDesign which files to gather and where to save them.
Package Options
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Copy Fonts (Except CJK)—Copies all fonts used in the document into the resulting package with the exception of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean fonts.
Copy Linked Graphics—Copies all graphics used in the document into the resulting package folder.
Update Graphic Links In Package—When graphics are copied to the package folder, the graphics in the packaged InDesign document will be linked to the graphics that were copied to the package folder instead of the original location of the graphics.
Use Document Hyphenation Exceptions Only—These options prevent reflow from occurring if someone opens this document on a computer that contains different hyphenation settings.
Include Fonts and Links from Hidden and Non-Printing Content—This option will package content in your document that is found on hidden layers and will include content that has been marked as non-printing. With this option unchecked, those elements will not get included in the package.
View Report—Will display the Printing Instructions report after the package has been completed.
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4. In response to the Font Alert dialog box that details the legalities of giving your fonts to a printer or service provider, click OK to begin packaging the files. If you don’t want to see this alert in the future, click the Don’t show again checkbox before you click OK.
The font warning dialog box explains some of the legalities of sharing fonts with other users.
5. When the dialog box closes, a small progress window appears, displaying the status of the packaging process. Once it has finished, close your CarAd_work.indd file.
6. In the Windows Explorer or Finder, navigate to the desktop, and double-click the CarAd folder. Inside, you’ll find a copy of the document file, an instructions file, a Fonts folder with all the fonts used in the job, and a Links folder that contains all the graphics—all in one easy-to-send Package.
When the Package process is complete, all the project’s elements are displayed together in the CarAd folder.
 Now that all the files required to reproduce your job have been copied to the location you specified and are contained within their own folder, you can send this folder to another person to review, or to your printer or service provider |
