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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.
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 to output your job. To ensure the integrity of the files and speed the transfer, compress the packaged folder before sending. The compressed file can then be shared through e-mail, uploading them to an FTP server, or using a service such as Adobe’s SendNow or another service such as DropBox. |
Creating an Adobe PDF
The Package feature collects all your data files, but the recipients still must have InDesign to read the document. But what if they don’t?
The answer is to send a PDF file. PDF (Portable Document Format) is a common format that can be viewed and printed from any computer platform—Mac, Windows, Linux, and others—that has the free Adobe Reader program installed. A PDF file is an excellent way to make your project available for a wide range of users, and InDesign CS6 makes the process of creating a PDF file of your project very easy. In the following steps, you will create a PDF file of your CarAd_work.indd file so that other people can see your progress and provide feedback on changes that might need to be made before this project is sent to a printer for production.
PDFs can also be used for presentation purposes. PDFs generated in InDesign can contain sound, movies, animations, and hyperlinks to name a few.
1. In InDesign, choose File > Open Recent > CarAd_work.indd to open your work file.
2. Choose File > Export. In the resulting Export dialog box, name the file CarAd.pdf, choose Desktop from the Save in (Windows) or Where (Mac OS) drop-down menu, and select Adobe PDF (Print) from the Save as type (Windows) or Format (Mac OS) drop-down menu. Click Save.
Choose the Adobe PDF (Print) option in the Export dialog box.
3. The Export Adobe PDF dialog box appears. From the Adobe PDF Preset drop-down menu at the top of the dialog box, you can choose settings that control the PDF file’s size and quality, among other options. Because you will send the car ad to several people for general review, choose the [Smallest File Size] option from the Adobe PDF Preset drop-down menu.
 PDF presets are a way of saving favorite settings for the final generated PDF file. If you own Adobe Acrobat 7.0 or a more recent version, InDesign CS6 shares these settings with Acrobat Distiller, which is included with Acrobat. Likewise, if you create a custom setting within Distiller, you’ll see those settings in the Adobe PDF Preset drop-down menu when you export a PDF file from within InDesign CS6. |
4. Click the Hyperlinks checkbox near the bottom of the Export Adobe PDF dialog box. Activating the Hyperlinks option makes any hyperlinks created in the InDesign document clickable hyperlinks in the resulting PDF document. Also click the View PDF after Exporting checkbox so that the resulting PDF file opens in Acrobat after the export.
The Export Adobe PDF dialog box allows you to customize the PDF file you create from your InDesign file.
5. Click the Export button. InDesign displays a warning that your document’s transparency blend space doesn’t match the destination color space. This is because the Smallest File Size setting converts colors to RGB and the InDesign document is CMYK. Because your PDF file is for viewing purposes only, this is not a concern. Click OK to begin generating the PDF file.
6. When the PDF export is finished, it should automatically open in Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader. If not, double-click the CarAd.pdf file on your desktop to open it. Hover your cursor over the www.idcs6.com link, and the cursor changes to a hand. Click on the link to go to the web site specified in the ad. If you receive a message warning you that the document is trying to connect to a website, choose Allow.
The exported PDF file can contain interactive elements that are included in your InDesign file.
7. Choose File > Close to close the PDF file.
Separation preview
Designed primarily to produce print layouts, InDesign supports both traditional methods of printing color: the four-color process (CMYK) model and spot colors as well as the RGB color model. In the four-color process model, cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks (C, M, and Y, with black as the K) combine in various values to reproduce numerous colors. A printing press uses a separate plate for each of these four colors, laying the ink down on the substrate in separate layers. Spot colors are pre-mixed inks that match standard color values. To ensure the green in your company’s logo matches across all your print jobs, for example, you could choose a specific green spot color to ensure consistency.
Probably the most widely used spot color system is the Pantone Matching System, which is also called PMS, or simply Pantone colors. As a companion to the system it developed, Pantone Inc. also offers a swatch book so you can see how the colors reproduce on paper. All the Creative Suite applications have the Pantone library built in, so you can add spot colors to your document easily. Spot colors each require their own plates as well.
All Pantone colors have CMYK equivalents that enable you to reproduce the color using the standard process colors as well, should you need to conform to CMYK-only printing requirements, or reduce the number of plates.
 Printing a Pantone color as a CMYK color may cause it to look different from the spot version of that Pantone color. This is because of the limited gamut, or color range, that process colors are able to reproduce. Pantone offers a Process Color Simulator guide that compares the printed spot color against the printed process color and is indispensable when you reproduce spot colors as four-color process. |
In the printing industry, printers charge customers for each plate that has to be produced for the printing job. You want to be sure that unnecessary colors are not mistakenly sent to the printer, as extra colors increase your cost and can cause confusion. To prevent this added expense and frustration, the InDesign Separations Preview panel lets you view the separate plates, or separations, as the printer would see them before you send your file. Take a tour of the panel as you check the car ad’s separations.
1. Choose Window > Output > Separations Preview, or press Shift+F6, to open the Separations Preview panel.
2. Click on the Separations Preview panel menu button (
) and choose Show Single Plates in Black to turn off that option and see each plate in its actual color.
) and choose Show Single Plates in Black to turn off that option and see each plate in its actual color.
3. Choose Separations from the View drop-down menu in the Separations Preview panel.
4. Click the visibility icon (
) to the left of the CMYK entry to turn off the visibility of the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black plates in your document. InDesign now displays only the elements in Pantone 187 C.
) to the left of the CMYK entry to turn off the visibility of the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black plates in your document. InDesign now displays only the elements in Pantone 187 C.
Use the separation Preview panel to see where certain colors are used in your document.
You can tell that Pantone 187 C is a spot color because it is still visible after all the other separations have been hidden. Another way to identify a spot color in your document is to look at your Swatches panel. If any color has this icon (
) to the right of the color name, it indicates that the color is a spot color and outputs on its own plate. Because the newspaper’s specifications forbid spot colors, you must replace them in the car ad.
) to the right of the color name, it indicates that the color is a spot color and outputs on its own plate. Because the newspaper’s specifications forbid spot colors, you must replace them in the car ad.
5. Click on the panel menu button (
) in your Separations Preview panel or in the Swatches panel, and choose Ink Manager from the list. The Ink Manager lists all the plates or inks that are currently in your document.
) in your Separations Preview panel or in the Swatches panel, and choose Ink Manager from the list. The Ink Manager lists all the plates or inks that are currently in your document.
6. In the Ink Manager, click the spot icon to the left of the Pantone 187 C plate to change it from a spot color to a process color. You now see a process color icon (
) to the left of the Pantone 187 C plate, indicating that the color will output as process instead of spot. Click OK. Because you mapped the Pantone 187 C plate to process and you turned off display of your process colors in step 4, no colors are currently visible.
) to the left of the Pantone 187 C plate, indicating that the color will output as process instead of spot. Click OK. Because you mapped the Pantone 187 C plate to process and you turned off display of your process colors in step 4, no colors are currently visible.
The Ink Manager allows you to control how colors will be output without having to manually modify the color in the document.
7. Click on the visibility icon to the left of CMYK to see all the colors in your document again. The red color that was Pantone 187 C is now a red made of the four process colors. If you hover your cursor over different areas of your document, you can see the ink percentages to the right of each color in the Separations Preview panel.
Hover your cursor over areas of your document to see the ink percentages.
8. Toggle the visibility of various separations in your Separations Preview panel to see how the colors in your document are combined to achieve other colors, called builds.
9. Choose Off from the View drop-down menu in the Separations Preview panel to get back to your normal viewing mode, and close the Separations Preview panel. Now your ad is properly prepared for printing in the newspaper.
Printing a proof
The best way to avoid surprises at press time is to print a proof of your document on your desktop printer. Seeing your project on paper sometimes reveals design flaws or mistakes you missed when viewing your document on screen. Printing out a version of your document on a printer is referred to as printing a proof. The term proof is used to describe any type of output that is generated prior to making plates for a printing press. In this exercise, you’ll use InDesign to print a proof to your desktop printer.
1. With CarAd_work.indd open, choose File > Print to open the Print dialog box.
2. From the Printer drop-down menu at the top of the Print dialog box, choose a printer that is available on your computer.
3. Because there is only one page in your CarAd_work.indd file, leave Pages set to All. For multi-page documents, however, you could specify a limited range of pages to print.
4. Click Setup in the list on the left side of the Print window. On the right side, choose US Letter [8.5 × 11] from the Paper Size drop-down menu and click on the Landscape Orientation icon (
) to print your document in landscape orientation on standard letter-sized paper. The preview in the lower-left corner shows your page orientation and selected printer.
) to print your document in landscape orientation on standard letter-sized paper. The preview in the lower-left corner shows your page orientation and selected printer.
5. Your ad is larger than the letter-sized paper you specified in step 4, so click on the Scale to Fit radio button to scale your document to fit the available space. This automatically fits and centers your document on the printed page. (If you have a large-format printer, of course, you can adjust the paper size as needed and print at full scale.)
The Print dialog box enables you to control all aspects of how your page is oriented to the paper and printer.
6. In the list on the left, click Marks and Bleed. Click the All Printer’s Marks checkbox to tell InDesign to add the appropriate trim, bleed, and color marks to your page as you would see on a printer’s proof. Leave the other settings at their defaults.
The Marks and Bleed section allows you to control the marks that are placed on your page when it is printed.
7. Click Output in the list on the left. If you are printing to a color printer that prints CMYK colors, choose Composite CMYK (or Composite RGB, if your printer doesn’t print CMYK colors) from the Color drop-down menu on the right. If you are printing to a black-and-white printer, choose Composite Gray instead.
8. Click Graphics in the list on the left. In the Send Data drop-down menu of the Images section, choose the output quality of the graphics. Choose All for the best quality possible; choose Optimized Subsampling to let InDesign reduce the quality of your images slightly so the document prints faster. The higher the quality of the graphics, the more data InDesign needs to send to the printer and the longer it takes.
9. Click Print.
10. Choose File > Save to save your file, and then choose File > Close to close it.
 If you use the same print settings frequently, click the Save Preset button in the Print dialog box to save a preset of the current settings. The next time you need them, choose the preset from the dialog box’s Print Preset drop-down menu. This streamlines the process of printing, especially when you frequently print to the same printer using the same settings. |
Congratulations! You have completed this lesson.
Self study
Try the Find Font feature by choosing Type > Find Font to replace the fonts that Preflight or Package identifies as missing, with fonts you have loaded on your computer. Likewise, use the Links panel by choosing Window > Links to fix images that are missing or modified in your document. To find out more about what it means when fonts are missing, go to the Help file.
Investigate the numerous tools in InDesign CS6 that enable you to add interactivity to a PDF document when it is exported. For example, you can use the Button tool to add navigation to your exported PDF document, or you can add hyperlinks that are clickable links in the final PDF file. InDesign CS6 offers two PDF output methods, Print and Interactive. The interactive choice allows you to output a PDF file with interactive components like page transitions and animation. For more information on adding interactivity to an InDesign document, see Lesson 11, “Introduction to Digital Documents.” Practice modifying the PDF settings to achieve different results in file size and other properties. When you create a configuration that you like, save it as a PDF Preset so you can easily use it again in the future.
Using the Separation Preview panel’s Ink Manager, you can create an Ink Alias that maps one spot color to another. For instance, if you have two spot plates, you can map one ink to output on the same plate as the other ink. This feature is great when you realize at the last minute that you have too many spot colors in your document and need to minimize them. Practice this by creating a new document and adding at least two spot colors to your document. For more information on spot colors, check out Lesson 7, “Using Color in Your Documents.”
Review
Questions
1. What command copies the active document and all the fonts and graphics used in the document into a single folder on your computer?
2. When creating a PDF file from InDesign, what’s the easiest way to make sure that the settings for the PDF file are consistent every time?
3. What tool can be used to view the different ink colors that have been used in an InDesign document?
4. The Package dialog box tells you that there is a spot color used in your InDesign document and you simply want that color to output to the standard CMYK plates. What InDesign feature allows you to do this most efficiently?
Answers
1. The Package command.
2. You can save the settings as a PDF Preset.
3. The Separations Preview panel shows you all colors being used in an InDesign document.
4. The Ink Manager allows you to control the output of colors in an InDesign document with the click of a button.