Inspiring

Question

Best file format for images in printed book

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
November 12, 2022
4 replies
2151 views

Hi all! I have a situation where I'm making Excel spreadsheets into figures for importing to InDesign. Excel doesn't seem to export to tiff, which as far as I've read is the best format for InD (if this isn't correct I'd love other opinions).

Anyway, I'm exporting the spreadsheets to PDF and setting them to comply to PDF/A-3b (the highest option available), and they look very nice on screen in the InD files. I'm worried about how they'll look when printed.

I'd very much like to know if anyone feels there's a better option than what I'm doing.

Thanks!!

This topic has been closed for replies.

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

If you want to import PDFs in InDesign use PDF/X-4.

Not PDF/X-A as this is not for print quality.

Not PDF/X-1a or X-3 as those have flattened transparency which can cause visible stitching lines in the final output.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

PDFs won't work give showing the entire screen. He'll only work for the actual spreadsheet area itself.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

rob day

Community Expert

Hi @Susan Culligan , If you have the option to use them the PDF/X-4 and PDF/X-1a presets are designed for offset printing.They adhere to printing standards and include an Output Intent Profile.

Susan CulliganAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks Rob. Unfortunately Excel (I have Microsoft Office 365 so it should be the latest version) seems to stop at PDF/X3-A, but I didn't know about Output Intent Profile, which I'll check out right away.

Cheers!

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

As already mentioned - you can link Excel with InDesign - but it looks like you don't know InDesign very well so it would be better for you to place without linking or copy&paste directly from Excel and style it in InDesign.

Unless of course your Excel data may change frequently - but then you need to be very careful what and how you are doing.

Susan CulliganAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks, but the images need to look exactly like the Excel spreadsheets (the book is an instruction on using Excel for business, and the author is using his actual sheets), so I can't make them into tables in InDesign. I got the answer I needed re using PDFs, so I'm all set. BTW, I guess if I knew InDesign as well as you do, I wouldn't need to post a question. 😉

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

As an instruction book, presumedly, you will need to show the entire screen including the menus and ribbon area. Exports from Excel will NOT show the entire screen. For that, you will need to use screen captures.

The best option for screen captures is to take them on a uHD (4K or higher) monitor. Most screen capture software saves as RGB PNGs. InDesign will use those fine--you can convert to CMYK during output from InDesign or let the printer handled it.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

S

Sumo148

Community Expert

You should be able to place linked versions of excel spreadsheets into InDesign that can then be formatted with table styles. That will keep your data as live type. There's a preference setting under file handling for spreadsheets.

As for image formats in InDesign, I prefer using native PSD files for any raster artwork. I avoid PNGs for print since they're primarily for web. JPEGs could have compression artifacts, depends on the quality.

In this case exporting to PDF should retain live type from excel, which would be better than rasterizing it.

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