PDF Creation Guidelines From InDesign

PDF Creation Guidelines

From InDesign

General Tab

Compatibility should be set to Acrobat 5. This

gives us the smallest file sizes while still allowing

us to use some transparency.

Select the pages you wish to export to PDF

Select Optimize for Fast Web View

If you built bookmarks, added hyperlinks

(URLs), or other interactive elements, check the

appropriate box in the Include area.

Compression Tab

Color Images

Use 120 pixels per inch for images because

the default line screen for a 300 dpi laser

printer is 60 lines per inch. Multiply this by

2 to get the optimal image resolution of

120 ppi. Users viewing PDF files on screen

can’t tell the difference between high- and

medium-quality JPEG compression. Print

output quality follows suit.

Grayscale Images

Use the same specifications as Color

Images.

Monochrome Images

Choose 300 pixels per inch. CCITT Group 4

is the best, general-purpose compression

technique for monochrome images. Most

Fax machines use Group 3.

Compress Text and Line Art and Crop Image

Data to Frames should be checked.

Marks and Bleeds Tab

Unless you are sending this PDF off to be

printed at a commercial printer, you can leave

this page blank with no changes.

Output Tab

Color

Color Conversion is not really needed except

for specific cases such as a commercial

printer.

Don’t Include Profiles should be selected

except for specific cases such as going to

a commercial printer and you know what

profile to include for all images.

Advanced Tab

Embed all fonts for best results and future

manipulation by us if needed.

OPI can be ignored as it refers to prepress

functions at a commercial printer and

generally will never be used.

Everything else can be left blank/unchecked.

Security Tab

Set the settings here as needed based on

usage and client specification. Remember

that there are programs that can bypass the

security settings in a PDF file so absolute

security does not exist.

Save Preset

Save the settings with a name like what

appears in the Adobe PDF Preset box at the top

left. You will not have to adjust the settings

every time you make a file that way. There will

be times when you can adjust a setting such as

when you know the only place these files will

be used is on a CD. Then you could increase the

compression to 170 pixels per inch. (This is the

setting for 600 dpi printers)

Setting to Adjust

in Adobe Acrobat

Description Tab

Title

The title is important.

Author

Enter the publication’s author here.

Subject

This can be the same as the title if no other

information is available. It is the descriptive

summary of the publication.

Keywords

Keywords should be specific and descriptive.

Use lower case. Separate words with

commas but no spaces (e.g: pesticides,

chemicals,methods,study). Phrases (Purdue

University Agricultural Communication)

can be used as one keyword. There is a

maximum of 255 characters that can be

used. Several search engines look at the

Keywords field so it is important.

Security Tab

Normally, no changes are necessary here. You

can password protect the document to restrict

modifying, copying, or printing. Like most

security, it can be broken so it is not fail-safe.

Fonts Tab

This shows what fonts are actually embedded

in the document. The more fonts listed here, the

larger the file size. Sometimes InDesign includes

fonts not actually used in the publication so

you will have to remove them. This can be

accomplished by using PDF Optimizer and

selecting what fonts to remove.

Initial View Tab

Document Options

Show: Decide wether to show the Bookmark

panel or other panels automatically when

the PDF is opened.

Page Layout: Decide weather a PDF

document should open as a single page or

continuous, running pages. Set as Single.

Magnification: Set to Fit Width.

Window Options

Show: Set to Document Title. That is

why setting the title under Description is

so important. If this was set to File Name,

then the PDF would get a title that looked

like FNR_277_Prices.indd. This is not very

descriptive or professional looking.

Custom Tab

For Web PDF files, there is not any reason to add

anything here.

You can add custom document properties

to store specific types of metadata, such as

the Extension number, in a PDF document.

Properties you create appear in the Document

Properties dialog box. Properties you make must

have unique names that do not appear on the

other tabs in the Document Properties dialog

box.

Advanced Tab

The only setting that might be changed here is

if you are adding a Search Index. This is typically

only used for CDs or if you have a database of pdf

files set up online. If the publications are online,

this should not be needed based on the fact that

most search engines can search inside PDF files.

PDF Optimizer Images Tab

Most of the time, the PDF is already optimized

when you do a Save As.

These are the same settings used when you

make a PDF out of InDesign. Doing this again will

not effect the images.

PDF Optimizer Scanned Pages Tab

These settings usually will not have to be

adjusted unless you have an entirely scanned

page. A PDF with entirely scanned pages will be

large in file size.

PDF Optimizer Fonts Tab

You can select fonts to Unembed if necessary.

Make sure they are not used in the document or

there will be future font compatibility issues.

Save Settings

You can save the setting for PDF Optimizer to

make future optimizations faster by clicking on

the Save icon near the top of the window.

PDF Optimizer Transparency Tab

No changes need to be made here. Do not flatten

transparency.

PDF Optimizer Discard Objects Tab

The safest options to select here are indicated

in the picture to the left. This has typically been

done behind the scenes in InDesign when the

PDF was made but if it was manipulated in

Acrobat, there might be a small amount of data

that has been added that can be removed.

PDF Optimizer Clean Up Tab

The safest options to select here are indicated

in the picture to the left. This has typically been

done behind the scenes in InDesign when the

PDF was made but if it was manipulated in

Acrobat, there might be a small amount of data

that has been added that can be removed.

Always do a Save As before you send the PDF to be posted online.

If you save a PDF multiple times, the files size can be bloated by several hundred percent.

1-8-2007

PDF Creation Guidelines

Web Links

Web links guidelines

The Purdue University logo is linked to the Purdue University Home Page.

The Purdue Extension mark is linked to the Purdue Extension Home Page.

The KTG logo links the Knowledge to Go Education Store page.

The KTG store ad on the back all links to the Education Store page.

In general, all URLs in the body of a document are to be blue.