This is an hour long video class with a corresponding step by step bellow with resources for any intermediate level zine makers needing the know how to preflight their zines manually or with InDesign’s preflight features and create a PDF that is imposed for saddle stitch.
Step By Step:
Basic print “preflight”:
Can be automated (see NOTE below)
- Check for any missing modified links with the links pallet, find or replace any missing links.
- Activate all fonts in your fonts folder, find or replace any missing fonts.
- Visually check for and get rid of “overset text” – look for the red plus.
- Check your image resolution by clicking on the image with the white arrow and going to Window > Info. The “Effective ppi” needs to be minimum 225. You can scale down the image to get a higher effective ppi”
- Check your image color space with Window > Info. For print projects images should be CMYK. Convert RGB by opening in photoshop and going to Image > Mode > CMYK NOTE: steps 2-6 can above can be double checked by clicking on the little red (or green) light at the bottom on your screen and pulling up the Preflight palette or going to Window > Output > Preflight, going to the option menu on the upper right of the palette and configuring a new “Digital Printing” profile as indicated on this PDF: PreFlight-SetUp. For more advanced production tips look up “preflight” and “defining a preflight profile” in the InDesign help menu. Be sure to select your new profile in the preflight palette.
Can not be automated - Visually check your bleeds – art that is intended to run off the page should extend beyond the document at least .125″. You also need to remember to put .125″ in the PDF “Marks and Bleed” export setting where you also add crop marks.
- If there is no bleed remember the laser printer will not print within .25″ on the edge of the paper – so give yourself a .25″ margin with no text or image.
- If you are doing saddle stitch your page count must be divisible by 4. If one of your pages is intentionally blank be sure to check “Print blank pages” at the bottom of the set-up pane in the print dialog.
Printing your book with the correct “imposition”:
(reordering of pages for saddle stitch.)
- If you are “saddle stitching” your zine (folding the pages over and stapling them) then your overall page count must be divisible by 4, your cover must be a right facing page by its self and your back cover must be a left facing page by its self.
- Go to File > Print Booklet and select Preview
- Your first spread (2-pages) will be your front cover on the right and your back cover on the left. Scroll all the way to the end, the last spread will be your center spread. If this is not the case make sure your page count is divisible by four.
- OR – If one of your pages is intentionally blank be sure to check “Print blank pages” at the bottom of the Set-up pane in the print dialog.
- Click on Print Settings, go to Setup, and adjust your orientation (likely to landscape), your placement to Centered, and make sure it is not on Scale to Fit.
- On the lower left of Print Settings click on Page Setup and make sure you select the printer and paper size you are printing to and hit ok.
- Back on the lower left of Print Settings click on Printer, click Show Details, and set it to two sided printing and select either long edge or short edge as is appropriate to your file. (A typical half-letter zine is “2-up+ on a landscape sheet. So to get it to back up right you need to select “short-edge”. If it comes out all topsy turvy or backwards go back to Printer and change it from the setting you have to the other setting.
Printing or exporting your book to PDF with the correct “imposition”
In Design Print Booklet Quick version export to post-script then PDF Note: If you are using 11×17 paper you MUST have a printer description “PPD” (in the print dialog pull down menu under the printer selector) that can handle the paper size you are working with. If you do not have an 11×17 printer and do not have any PPDs other than “device independent (which will not work correctly no matter how many times you try it) then follow this workaround to install an “Adobe PDF” ppd.
- Navigate to the folder /Applications/Adobe Indesign CC/Presets/.
- Within the Presets”, folder Create a folder called PPDs (the folder name is case-sensitive).
- Click this link to download the Acrobat 9 PPD:”ADPDF9.PPD”
- Retrieve ADPDF9.PPD from your downloads folder
- Place a copy of the downloaded PPD into the folder you created in step 2.
- Go to File > Print Booklet, select “Postscript® file” as you printer and “Adobe PDF 9.0” as your printer description.
- Go through steps 1-4 under Printing your book with the correct “imposition” above and click print. It will ask you where you want to save the .ps (postscript file)
- Open Acrobat Distiller (inside of the Adobe Acrobat folder).
- Change the settings to “High Quality Print” and drag and drop your .ps file onto it. This will generate your correctly imposed PDF.
More thorough print booklet tutorial Note that the sample in the demo is actually 20 pages but the designer has made the front cover page 1 and the inside front cover “IFC” 2 and then made the first page of content page 1 also. This is not a good idea and can cause problems and confusion. Always start booklets, zines, magazines, with page 1 as the cover. Long form books with forwards ext… traditionally make the first page of content page 1 but make all pages prior numbered with roman numerals. In publication printing the right “folios” (page numbers) are ALWAYS odd left folios are ALWAYS even. If they are not thats the first sign something has gone terribly wrong.
