Optimise your PDF

After creating your PDF, open your PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro and select "File -> Save as -> Optimized PDF". Please adjust the following settings:

Compatibility: "Retain existing“

  • Images: here we recommend "Bicubic Downsampling to" 300 or 301 ppi for images above 300 ppi (JPEG, maximal quality)
  • Fonts: please tick the checkbox “Do not unembed any font”
  • Transparency: please select “High Resolution”
  • Discard Objects: please tick all the checkboxes except
    - Convert smooth lines to curves
    - Detect and merge image fragments
  • Discard User Data: please tick all the checkboxes
  • Clean Up: please set object compression options to "Compress document structure" and tick all the checkboxes except
    - In streams that use LZW encoding, use Flate instead
    - Discard unreferenced named destinations
    - Optimise the PDF for fast web view

Especially for Photoshop
If you are using photo editing programs like Photoshop, we recommend saving the double-page spreads as jpg (Quality 10). Please rename your photos to sequential numbers (01..., 02..., ...); that way your photobook or calendar will be automatically filled.

Export multipage PDF file from Photoshop
In CS3: In Photoshop, it is possible to save more than one document as a multipage PDF file. Please select File -> Automate -> PDF Presentation. Click on "Add open files“ to open the files needed and then select "Multipage Document" to save all the files in one PDF.
In CS4: In CS4 this function is integrated in Adobe Bridge. Please select the needed files from the folders. Then go to the output panel (Window -> Workspace -> Output; the panel appears on the right side). Please select "PDF" and set "Template" to "Custom". Now you have to enter the accurate page size. In the tab "Layout", please set the values of margin (top, bottom...) to zero. You can ignore the tabs "Overlays", "Header", "Footer", "Playback" and "Watermark" and save the document at the end.

Especially for Scribus
Scribus 1.4.4 can embed fonts in PDF files, while other old versions do not support this function. Therefore, if you are not using the latest version, it is necessary to convert the fonts to outlines (also "convert to paths") before the export.

Please note: Although the structure of multi-page photography products in Scribus is possible with double pages, in PDF export, the duplicate pages are exported separately as single pages. The PDF file is needed in the webshop (with photobooks) but with coherent double pages, so that this can be interpreted correctly. In order to create your data in Scribus, we recommend that you create a single page in the format of a double page and to create the corresponding markers and help lines.