adobe illustrator prepress and file export as pdf guide

PrintNinja | 877-396-4652 | www.printninja.comCopyright © 2013 PrintNinja LLC. All rights reserved. PrintNinja is a registered trademark of PrintNinja LLC. The PrintNinja logo and related marks are marks of PrintNinja LLC.

This guide is provided as a conveience to PrintNinja customers and while every effort has been made to ensure its accuracy, PrintNinja cannot be responsible for any errors or omissions.This guide may contain references and examples that feature products,services or brands that are the intellectual property of others.

These are included for illustrative purposes only and those products, services and brands do not endorse this guide or have any association with PrintNinja LLC.

Adobe Illustrator Prepress Guide

IntroductionEnsuring top-notch finished results is simple in Adobe Illustrator when your document is setup correctly from the start. This document will guide you through the steps of creation, working with images, and final preparation for the press.

Save time and avoid headaches:Take time to carefully follow these instructions when setting up your document. Most printing issues stem from incorrect document setup.

1. Pre-setup QuestionsThe following three questions help you quickly determine what special considerations need to be accounted for when creating your document.

★ Will the document contain images or graphics (both color and monochrome/black & white)? > Refer to: Images & Color

★ Will images or other content go to the edge of a page? > Refer to: Bleed

★ Will the document be folded or bound? > Refer to: Margins

If the answer is yes to any of the above questions, take additional time to review those sections carefully before cre-ating your document.

2. Document SetupCreate a new document (File > New) and insert your document settings.

Some options can be modified later while others can only be set at the time of document setup. The following list describes the parameters to take into consideration with each option.

Number of Artboards:You can create a multi-page document using numerous artboards. While laying out a flyer or other single-page documents in Illustrator is acceptable, multi-page documents are best setup in Adobe InDesign, a full page layout program that has very useful layout features to ensure that your entire publication retains the proper look and feel.





Profile: Choose Print; you will be able to export for the web if needed later.

Size: Indicate the finished (after cutting) size of your document. Several common paper sizes are included as pre-sets such as Letter (8.5” x 11”), Letter - Half (5.5” x 8.5”), Tabloid (11” x 17”), and A4 (210 mm x 297 mm).

Units: It is easiest to work in inches for US Letter and similar document sizes and millimeters for metric page sizes (A4, A5, etc.)

Orientation: Choose portrait or landscape page layout. 3-fold brochures are typically landscape layouts while most other documents use portrait layouts.

Margins: The margins determine the area that is safe to print and place your content. Illustrator does not handle margins for you; margins must be set manually as described section 3 about document guides.

Objects and text that go outside of the margins risk getting cut or appearing too close to the edge of the page. Mar-gins are important and they must be calculated based on numerous factors.

Practical tip: Binding plays an important role in calculating margins. Thin documents (under 24 pages) can have as little as 0.375” (3/8”) margins, while thicker documents should allow “inside” margins of at least 0.75” (3/4”) and in some cases as much as 1.5” (1 1/2”). Often, you must account for the spine being glued shut (watch your inside margins) or stapled (watch your outside margins for creep). Your PrintNinja consultant can help you with specific margins for your document.

Your margins must be a minimum of 0.25” (1/4”) on all four sides of the document—in all cases. All text and images outside this area risk being cut off in final production.

Margins do not always have to be equal on all four sides, but again, they must be a minimum of 0.25 (1/4”) on each side. In some cases, you may want images, text, and other design objects to go up the edge of a page. Refer to “Bleed” to do this properly.

Advanced: Ensure that the color mode is set to CMYK and the raster effects are set to “High (300 ppi)”. Generally this is automatically set when you choose the ‘Print’ profile.

Bleed: Bleeds are a often misunderstood concept, but very important in the printing process. Bleed means print-ing excess color on the edges that will intentionally be cut off. Without bleeds, small, inconsistent white borders appear between the edge of your document which looks unprofessional. Bleeds are always excess—they do not diminish your finished document size. Simply put, if any printed element goes to the edge of your page, a bleed must be included.





Check your skils:Which of the three documents below must include a bleed? Note: the black lines indicate edges and are not printed.

Remember, bleeds are excess printed material, meaning that the document must be bigger than it’s finished size. You will need to incorporate a bleed of 0.125" (1/8") on all sides of your document. In Illustrator, you must enter sep-arate bleed dimensions in the “bleed” boxes as shown.

Your bleed is indicated by red lines OUTSIDE the white page area in Illustrator. Ensure that your bleed elements go to the red bleed border as shown below.

MAYOR OF LONDON Transport for London

Transport for London

Annual Report andStatement of Accounts2008/09

No bleed needed! All of the printed elements are contained within the margins and stay clear of the edges.

BLEED REQUIRED! Even though 95% of the image is contained in the margins, the black bar with “Annual Report” goes to the edge.

BLEED REQUIRED! The dark and light gray goes to the edge. This document needs a bleed.

Not OK The black stripe goes to the margin but has no bleed. To fix, drag the elements to the red line.

Good to Go! Everything is properly placed!

Good to Go! The bleed is excessive and goes past the red line, but that’s okay.

Verify your margins to ensure that the excess bleed isn’t impacting other areas.





3. Using document guidesObserve closely the guides in your document. The white box with thin black border is the finished page size, a US Letter sized at 8.5” x 11” in Landscape orientation.

Illustrator has no lines to indicate margins. Avoid your art-work getting cut off by creating guides. Note that these guides will not be printed.

To create top and bottom margins, double click on the ruler on the left of the artboard. To create left and right margins, double click on the ruler on the top.

Click on each guide line and the dimensions toolbar at the top right, type in the following values to perfectly place your margins.

★ Top margin: Enter Y value .25” (1/4 inch) Example: .25”

★ Bottom margin: Enter Y value Document size minus .25” (1/4 inch) Example: 8.5”-.25”

★ Left margin: Enter X value .25” (1/4 inch) Example: .25”

★ Right margin: Enter X value Document size minus .25” (1/4 inch) Example: 11”-.25”

Finally, the red border lines outside the white box is the “bleed” area, set at 0.125” (1/8”) all around. Objects in this area are important, even though they will be printed and later trimmed off. You will need to place images and other objects that go all the way to the red line. This produces a highly professional, finished look.

4. Preparing your document for pressYou’ll need to verify several aspects of your document before exporting a document ready to go to press. Illustrator does not have automated tools like InDesign to prepare documents for the press. You will have to perform all of your verifications manually!

Images: Verify that all placed images are properly linked. Illustrator does not warn by default about missing links. You can quickly verify the status of missing links by using the Links palette (Window > Links). A red circle means the image is missing and must be re-linked. A yellow triangle means the image is modified and needs to be updated.




Adobe Illustrator Prepress GuideImage Resolution:Low resolution images, generally most photos ‘borrowed’ from the Internet, are too low of a quality to print. The finished product is fre-quently blurry, poorly colored, and highly unprofessional. Double click on each link in the Links palette and verify that the ‘Effective PPI’ is 300 ppi or higher.

If images are not high enough quality, you will either have to:

★ shrink them ★ replace them with alternative images with a higher resolution ★ find the high quality original files

Note that while you can take low resolution images into photo ed-iting software such as Photoshop and increase the resolution, the final result is even poorer than the original low quality file. You can not transform a low resolution image into a high resolution image. Simply put: garbage in, garbage out.

Color and CMYK:All images and objects must be in the CMYK color mode to ensure proper output. The printer will not be responsible for any inaccurate colors on final products due to color shift from RGB or other color space assets.

Using the Links palette, click on each link to verify that the color space is CMYK. If a file is RGB or a different color space, open it in an image editor such as Photoshop and convert it into CMYK.

Pay attention to your color swatches and convert any RGB, Lab, PANTONE, or non CMYK swatches to its nearest CMYK match. Understand that CMYK can not exactly reproduce all colors, just as other color modes can not exactly reproduce all of the colors in CMYK.

Fonts:All fonts must be embedded or outlined in your exported file. Missing and corrupt fonts pose major problems. Illustrator automatically transforms missing fonts to the program default.

Fix missing fonts by going to menus and selecting Type > Find Font. Choose alternate fonts or re-install the missing fonts if you have them readily available. Use ‘Replace All’ to simplify the task.

Once missing fonts are found, you can export the document. For added security at the press, consider outlining the text in your document. Outlined text can not be edited; be sure to save a copy of your document before outlining the text.

If you’re ready to outline the text, select each text element and go to Type > Create Outlines. You will see the text transform from an editable text box to outlined, vector forms.





Margins and bleed:Double check your margins and bleed to ensure that important text and images will not get cut off or made unreadable by folding or binding. Ensure that all ob-jects that go to the edge of the paper extend up to the bleed line.

The image shown goes up to the bleed line (good), but the vintage Air France logo on the engines will be trimmed off which is bad, especially since this brochure is talking about Air France’s partnership with the Engine Alliance. The designer should consider proposing solutions including different images or using Photo-shop to place the logo in a different location on the engine.

Also in this example, the text goes up to the fold line. This is not acceptable and should be fixed. Text should be at least .125” (1/8 inch) away from folds.

5. Exporting to pressCongratulations, you've successfully made your document and prepared it for press. It's now time to export.

The Adobe PDF standard is the best format for exporting to press. There are many variants or 'flavors' of PDF—it's important to choose the right one to go to the press.

In the menus, choose File > Export. Select where you will save your file and its name. Choose Adobe PDF (press) as the export format.

Choose the preset "Press Quality", then click “Marks and Bleed” on the left. Check the box ‘Use Document Bleed Settings” and click Export.

Open your PDF and verify your results. The actual document dimensions should be larger than the actual finished size if it contains a bleed. For ex-ample, a US Letter (8.5" x 11") file with a 0.125" (1/8") bleed all the way around should measure 8.75" x 11.25". The excess area will be trimmed away after the press run to produce a US Letter size document.

6. Questions and problemsRunning into complications? Our designers are available for pre-press consulting services to guide you through the process or to work with you to completion. Visit our website for rates and details.

BLEED OK

DANGER! NO MARGINS!

adobe illustrator prepress and file export as pdf guide

Documents