This file is a complete novel ready for output to several media. We will start by making two PDFs with commonly needed settings.
InDesign installs with several important presets ready-to-go. A specific recipient of a PDF may supply you with others. Both installing provided PDF presets and creating your own, as well as a thorough description of the settings involved, are covered in the “Output” chapter of the Compendium: see “PDF” (page 339).
This preset serves as a good starting point for PDFs that will be shared electronically (by email or posted on a website). It usually requires a little bit of adjustment, however.
When you’ve committed to the location, you’ll see a second and more substantial dialog box with many sections to it.
Fit Page ensures that the recipient will see an entire page or spread when they open the PDF. The Layout choice ensures that the first page remains a single cover or title page and the rest are seen as spreads (“two-up”). The second section needs a little alteration.
Note that all images will not only be downsampled, but will also be made JPEGs of Low Quality. If the PDF is truly to be viewed on a screen only, then the targeted resolution (100 ppi for color images and 150 ppi for grayscale) is likely fine. However, low quality looks like it sounds.
This is rather different than a PDF made for on-screen viewing. Note that images will be downsampled to a healthy 300 ppi, and will be made JPEGs of Maximum Quality. When PDFs are going to press, file size is far less important, if at all. So even that can be improved.
Let’s assume our print shop has asked us to provide crop marks. For some documents they will ask for bleed if we have content that goes to page edges, but this one has none.
To satisfy our hypothetical printer’s request that we supply the PDF configured for the specific CMYK of their equipment, we’ll change the Destination to what they request:
I hope you noticed how many settings are dependent on information from the printer. Communication is very helpful when creating files for print output.