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Question

create low-res pdf with proxie images?

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
November 22, 2017
5 replies
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Hi! I am working with Acrobat Pro X [still learning it] to create a book containing a couple hundred very high-resolution images, suitable for print quality as a coffee-table type book. While this is the end product I'd like to be able to send to publishers, such a document with full-size images will be an enormous file, and really unworkable to edit and navigate in at home during the composition process, or to send out for review. Thus I intend to work with small low-res versions of all the images during creation of the book pdf, with the full-res images substituting in if a publisher is found.

Certainly one possibility is on completion, to give any publisher edit permissions of the final pdf along with a drive containing the identically-named full-res images for them to individually replace. Besides the effort for them, this requires afaik that I individually create low-res copies of each of the hundreds of images during the composition process as the working images. But as I imagine my situation isn't unique, I wonder if there is some simpler method to create and work with proxies, as i seem to recall from other Adobe apps. Thanks!

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T

Test Screen Name

Legend

InDesign will work fine with very large collections of images. It does indeed make proxies and (optionally) use them.

Other things for InDesign:

* You can work on portions (e.g. chapters) to be be combined into a book.

* You can create styles (and I'd very strongly recommend that you do). Thus, instead of changing fonts in each heading - and later changing your mind and having to change them all again - you set the fonts in the styles, and can change them globally

* InDesign can export both high resolution and low resolution versions from the same original

No publisher or printer is going to substitute high res images in a PDF for you. That's not what is done in the industry. High res substitution was much used about 20 years ago but is pretty much dead now, and the technology to do it for PDFs never caught on.

If you're talking about a professional publisher, they won't require you to layout the book. Supply designs of a small portion, and if they sign up to publish you, their techs will do it in house in a day. If you mean a self-publisher, CHOOSE THEM AND FIND OUT WHAT THEY NEED BEFORE YOU DO THE WORK!! It's very common for newcomers to this world to try and find out "how pros do it and do it that way" but the pros have to find out what the printer needs and do it that way... there is indeed a lot to learn, you will be doing the work of professionals and you're trying to make a top notch product. To be frank, consider paying someone to do the layout, or you risk devaluing what are surely top notch images, and reducing the attractiveness of a luxury end product.

B

bravedogAuthor

Known Participant

Thanks, this is quite informative.

No, I have no interest in the expense of self-publishing hard copy version of this! If I self-publish it will be as an ebook, which I feel quite capable of, but which would be a sorry substitute for proper res images.

"they won't require you to layout the book. Supply designs of a small portion," I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you're suggesting sending a small excerpt of the book, my feeling is that this wouldn't convey most of what might be seen as of value, its attempt at an encyclopedic survey of a phenomenon and breadth of imagery and description. Not that it matters, but this work is a survey of Egungun of Benin, an ornately costumed Yoruba trance society, with systematic traditional histories and portraits of 130 types. While images of a few egungun and limited discussions of the society exist, what could make this special is its depth and breadth which certainly doesn't exist elsewhere. Not that this topic necessarily has any appeal to publishers - if it does, supplying a small excerpt doesn't seem a promising strategy.

But if you mean any real publisher will just format and style it themselves, perhaps my idea of throwing together, using whatever app, a low-res pdf version to send out along with a few full-res separate images to indicate print res possibility, is still a good idea? Any value a publisher finds will be in the unique texts and images and the systematic approach, not the format style, Maybe I can just send out something which will faithfully show what the texts and imagery are, with express note they can format/layout themselves? .... Or maybe that's not what you mean at all...

Dov Isaacs

Legend

On behalf of Adobe …

Acrobat is not a page layout / composition program. Although it does support text edit and placement of imagery, such support is primarily for last minute or emergency fixup, not for document or in this case full publication creation.

Yes, print ready PDF is what you send to most professional print service providers, but the content should be composed with software that is suited to that task, which Acrobat is not!

In terms of Adobe's product offerings, your best bet is InDesign. Other software developers has competing products. And for very simple publications, you might even be able to get away with using Microsoft Word if you know what you are doing. From those applications, you output PDF and use Acrobat to review and proof what you have before sending that PDF file for professional printing.

- Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

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bravedogAuthor

Known Participant

My text needs seem pretty simple, formatting, page numbering and headers, 2 or 3 fonts in a few sizes, creation of title page, placement and sizing of image appearance.

Whatever composition app I use, I will certainly be working with low-res versions of the images that would be supplied and used if ever accepted for printing. As a wild guess a final pdf with full-size images might be 100 gigs. No way can I work with a document this size, everything on my home computer would freeze up when only a small portion of the images were imported into a single document. So in spite of helpful input about what app might be most suitable for composition, I am still looking for an answer to my original question. Should I individually create low-res versions of all images as working images, and supply the full-res images in a folder for any publisher who accepted it to sub in? Or is even this idea unworkable?

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

Printers like PDFs, but your mistake is to think that Acrobat is a tool for composing PDFs. It isn't.This isn't your fault: Adobe marketing talk up Acrobat because it's their job and, hey. they don't have to work with printers. The whole idea of Acrobat is that you use any suitable app and then convert to PDF. Acrobat (in Windows) lets you print to PDF, though if an app has PDF creation built in that's superior. The editor in Acrobat is a very simple thing, really designed for fixing typos and not much else. It's more sophisticated in the current version, but ironically even harder to make press quality because it's designed to make simple choices.

The key thing is that there isn't AN APP that pros use. They use a mixture of apps. So, photos are edited in Photoshop. Pages are composed in InDesign. Files are converted to PDF. Acrobat may be used to do preflight checking, conform to print standards, or to combine files. You might use Word, if you are working in RGB with ICC-profile tagged images; check your PDF creation settings, and use the Acrobat ribbon added to Word by Acrobat (this won't happen in Office 2016 with Acrobat X).

You really need to establish what your printer will need. Some might demand the image files and InDesign layouts. Some might want PDF, or PDF/X-1a, or PDF/X-4 or something else. You can waste a lot of time if you try and second guess what printers will need.

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bravedogAuthor

Known Participant

Thanks. I don't have a publisher, I have a book I've been working on for 10 years that's finally ready to assemble. Because of the detailed images a hard copy printing would be far better than an ebook, which I can make myself and publish as such if as is more likely than not a hard copy publisher can't be found, though some people think this possible enough to be worth pursuing. My research suggested pdf as a good format to flog out to potential publishers which would work for them if accepted. In fact this is the specific and only reason I purchased Acrobat X Pro [some years back now].

Given this reality, what do you consider my best option, then? Create a .doc file and send as doc or pdf out to potential publishers, and then convert to a demanded format if accepted for publication?

InDesign looks expensive and complicated, and especially if not necessarily suited to flog out to random publishers, not appealing. But I'm open to suggestions.

BTW, whatever format I use, that issue with the ginormous images and low-res working images remains...

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

Please, please don't do this. This is not what Acrobat is for, seriously not what it is for. You may make a file that looks OK on screen but fails at the printers, and that could be very expensive.

Word is not a good choice, but enormously better than Acrobat. InDesign is Adobe's product for this, but it is much harder to learn than Word.

What app would you use today to just make up pages with pictures for printing at home?

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bravedogAuthor

Known Participant

Like a flyer? I'd use Word or Acrobat if the images were complete, maybe Photoshop or PhotoPaint if I was doing much image editing. In this case [the book] I'll probably crop photos in Photoshop but planned to place and resize the image views in Acrobat.

Certainly I want to end up with a good printable pdf so will move to another comp app if this is a bad idea. I do wish you would be more specific in why it's a bad idea. Even "You may make a file that looks OK on screen but fails at the printers" - I thought one reason printers like pdfs is that this was not the case?

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

What app are yiu using to actually compise the book before converting to PDF? You make it sound as if you are laying out a book in Acrobat, but that’s out of the question for this task.

B

bravedogAuthor

Known Participant

I don't at all see why you say that. I actually have the text chapters all completed in .txt files which I am importing, and then will adjust font, layout, and headers in acrobat, as well as inserting and sizing all the photos within the pages. Why is that out of the question, please?

I do own Word but thought it easier to just do in Acrobat, which I can learn fairly quickly. Word seems very complicated and as if it would take me months to learn, the great majority of whose features I don't need.

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