PDF EXPORT GUIDES

Adobe Illustrator

Exporting a print-ready PDF from Illustrator, step by step.

PDF export settings

No changes are needed on the "Security" or "Summary" tabs.

01
General
Set the "Adobe PDF Preset" to the factory "[Press Quality]" setting.
02
General
Set "Compatibility" to "Acrobat 4 (PDF 1.3)". Leave the "Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities" checkbox unchecked; a file saved with this option becomes difficult or impossible to edit in Illustrator, so do not overwrite the original working file!
03
Compression
If the settings shown below already match what you see, there is nothing to change on this tab.
04
Marks and Bleeds
Set the parts marked in red to match the screenshot; if you used a 5 mm bleed, set both "Offset" and "Bleed" to 5 mm!
05
Output
Set "Color Conversion" to "No Color Conversion"; this setting assumes every image used in the publication is already in CMYK mode!
06
Advanced
Set "Transparency Flattener" to "[High Resolution]".