Exporting a Print PDF from Adobe InDesign

Start the Export

Go to File > Export, choose Adobe PDF (Print) as the format, and click Save.

Choose a Preset

Select [Press Quality] from the Adobe PDF preset dropdown to populate most of the recommended settings.

General Settings

• set compatibility to Acrobat 4 (PDF 1.3) or above
• make sure All Pages is selected
• choose Pages rather than Spreads unless we have specifically asked otherwise

Compression

• downsample images to 300 PPI for anything above 450 PPI
• use Automatic (JPEG) compression
• set quality to Maximum

Marks and Bleeds

• go to the Marks and Bleeds tab
• check Crop Marks
• enable Use Document Bleed Settings if your file already has bleed set up
• if not, enter the required bleed manually

If you do not enable bleed in the export, it will not be included in the PDF even if the document was built with bleed.

Output Settings

• set colour conversion to Convert to Destination (Preserve Numbers)
• choose document CMYK
• use FOGRA39 for coated stocks such as silk or gloss
• use FOGRA29 for uncoated stocks such as bond or pulp
• include the destination profile

Advanced Settings

• set Subset Fonts When Percent of Characters Used Is Less Than to 100%
• leave transparency flattening at the default unless told otherwise

Security

If you need to restrict editing, you can set passwords or permissions, although this is uncommon for print-ready files.

Final Check

Export the PDF, then open it in Adobe Acrobat or another viewer and check that images, fonts, crop marks, and bleed all appear correctly.