Sharing and publishing 219
Exporting as PDF
CraftArtist can output your drawings to PDF (Portable Document Format), a
cross-platform WYSIWYG file format developed by Adobe, intended to handle
documents in a device- and platform-independent manner.
PDF documents are ideal for both screen-ready distribution and professional
printing. In CraftArtist, ready-to-go PDF profiles are available for both uses,
making PDF setup less complicated.
• Screen-ready. If you require screen-ready PDFs you're likely to need
PDF documents which are optimized for screen use, i.e. with
downsampled images, document security, but without pre-press page
marks, bleed, etc. Downsampling images leads to smaller documents
for quicker loading.
Profiles such as "Web - Compact" and "Web - Normal" are provided
for screen-ready use (downsampling images to 96 and 150dpi,
respectively), and are ideal for hosting PDFs on websites or other
electronic distribution (email).
• Professional. PDF documents are suited to professional printing, i.e.
when you deliver a high quality reproduction of your drawing to a
print partner (normally external to your company). You'll typically
require page marks, bleed, ≥300dpi images, and PDF/X-1a
compatibility (for CMYK output).
To make things simple, the professional print profile called "PDF X-
1a" is provided in CraftArtist (using PDF X-1a compatibility), but you
should check with your print partner if PDF/X-1, and any other
settings, may be required instead. A "Press Ready" profile can also be
used for documents which are not intended to be PDF/X compliant.
With PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-1 compatibility, all your drawing's colours
will be output in the CMYK colour space, and fonts you've used will be
embedded. A single PDF/X file will contain all the necessary
information (fonts, images, graphics, and text) your print partner
requires.
