Creating a PDF of the insides and the cover

The final stage of preparing a book for printing is the creation of PDFs. These can be output from design software and will show the precise page and cover layouts, plus printer’s marks just off the edges of the pages. Printer’s marks are there to identify the document and to show them where to crop the edge of the page. If you are using designers, printers or a self-publishing company, then this isn’t a stage you need to worry about. Just insist that the finished PDFs are e-mailed to you for checking (or supplied on a CD if the files are too big to e-mail). This is your last chance to spot errors before the book changes from the virtual production line to the real thing.

The cover of the book should have a separate PDF from the insides. This is because it will be printed separately, sometimes in a different factory.

If you attempt to output your own PDFs, you need to ensure that the settings are correct. Some PDF-making software will attempt to compress your book to save file space and speed up Internet download times. This will result in a poor quality printed result. Maximum quality and minimal or no compression should be used for print-ready

PDFs. There are dozens of settings that could cause problems at this stage but all you need to do is send the PDFs to your printer for checking. They will use software to run automatic ‘pre-flight’ checks on the files which will highlight any issues that need attention.