A question about PDF Output settings

[radoslava645]

Hello!

Can someone explain what PDF Output options do and how they work in Illustrator?

I already checked out adobe's guide, but could not understand it since it seemed a bit too complicated.

[Monika Gause]

We can't just repeat what's in the documentation. So you might want to tell us specifically what you don't understand.

[radoslava645]

Pretty much the whole section about the output settings. Destination, color conversion, etc.

I also really appreciate the link you sent me in my other post, so if you can share any good resources related to the most important things related to printing that would be really beneficial, as I just can't seem to find any courses that I trust. Any printing book recommendations would also be very useful.

[Monika Gause]

Any chance you can read German?

In that case this free PDF would tell you all: https://www.cleverprinting.de/cleverprinting-handbuch-kostenlos-herunterladen/

On LinkedIn you could check out the courses by Claudia McCue, who is a renowned expert in all things print. Basically what you find concerning InDesign applies to Illustrator as well.

[radoslava645]

Wow, thanks for telling me about Claudia! I will check out her courses immediately.
I can't read German, and to be fair I went a little unprepared with my client, so I was wondering if the following is an acceptable practice.

Do you think it would be okay to simply send my client an AI file, and from there, they just have to go to their printer, explain what they need and the printer can export a proper PDF according to their requirements?

[Monika Gause]

The printer might or might not even have Illustrator.

These days usually printing services use Acrobat and a range of plugins/other applications specifically for the printing process.

What you could do is talk to the printer and ask them about their specifications. Then you can make a PDF according to those specs. You should also be able to talk to printers about the spot color issue. Talk to them about costs and quality and the printing process. You will need to do this anyway. For every project and every printer you need to know the specs. These are not necessarily the same. It's professional to ask for specs, don't be afraid of that.

Usually clients know even less about this than you do at the moment. And they don't need to know and of course they will always find another designer who does know these things. So you should really not do that.

So maybe you could spend this weekend with it? You can read a lot on one weekend. You can also watch a lot of video on one weekend. And after that weekend you perhaps know some more specific questions that you can ask us on the forums.

[jdanek · Accepted solution]

"Can someone explain what PDF Output options do and how they work in Illustrator?"

PDF settings have nothing to do with Illustrator other than they should honor your Illustrator Color Settings, Raster effects resolution, and fonts.  A PDF is a file type suitable for output ( in the case of print shops, that would be their RIP / Platemaker ). PDF stands for ( if I am not mistaken ) portable document format.  I have captured my Adobe Distiller "Press Quality" PDF Settings...

notice the "Resolution" is set for 5480 DPi.  I use these settings on all print jobs and never ran into any problems...

actually my "Monochrome Image Sampling is a little low, but still within reason.  I hould set it for 2740 DPi...

and your fonts should be embedded ( above )...

this is probably the most important setting ( for spot color especially ) "Leave Color Unchanged", mainly because you've already established your color swatches in Illustrator and you want them honored with no further manipulations...

and these ( above ) are user specific, but your print vendor may want some of these settings and may not want others...

last, but not least, Standards > None, again, your print vendor may want to chime in here, but by leaving it set to "none", you are leaving it open because, after all, you are in an open loop workflow ( when you send files out to be printed ).

These are my Distiller settings, but they should give you a better understanding of what to use in your given scenario.  One recommendation I make to new users or persons not that familiar with printing is to get Adobe's Print Publishing Guide, a very useful book about file prep and printing.

[radoslava645]

Thank you so much for your time!

Your screenshots will be really useful.