Print Book Publishing
To ensure that documents export from Pressbooks have the recommended settings needed to print book publishing, please review the information below to ensure that all books meet these requirements to clear and consistent print.
Recommended Settings for Print PDF
- All images have a resolution of 300 ppi or higher to ensure clarity
- Fonts size are 6pts or higher for clear printing.
- Any art or graphics using lines should have a line width > 0.002 in or 0.005 cm
- The first and last page of the .pdf must be blank for cover design. (This is only necessary for Lulu.com.)
- For Amazon KDP, the custom cover must have a size of 17.743 x 11.250 in.
- Line art must be inside the margin for KDP and Lulu. (The Prince watermark on PDF export is an error for Amazon KDP services. This needs to be removed prior to going through the print process.)
NOTE: For Pressbook PDF export, both the digital and print versions can be used to produce print books, please note that the difference between the two, for print purposes, is the inclusion of blank pages in the Print version for a more professional look with left or right page breaks being accounted for so that chapters always start on the same side.
If an instructor wishes to have a print version available for a Word or Latex created a document, please refer them to the Print Book section in the faculty guide for information on how to format the document as well as steps on how to go through the print process on Lulu and Amazon KDP.
For our uses, instructions on how to publish a PDF with the recommended settings is shown below.
Word
When building the text in word, using the right format guide and style is important to ensure that the text is published in a manner that is close to professional quality. Once the content is completed, the fonts must be embedded into the text with image compressing removed for the pdf export. How to do perform these is shown below along with optional instructional videos provided by AKDP.
- Embedding Fonts (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf27pv6ovDc)
- Go to File -> Options
- Go to the Save section
- Towards the bottom, there is an option to embed fonts. Click on Embed fonts in the file and unselect Do not embed common systems fonts.
- Click OK.
- Turn off downsampling for images (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2qLR-wLlCY)
- Go to File -> Options
- Go to the Advance section
- Scroll down to the Image Size and Quality section
- Click on the Do not compress images in file option
- Recommendation: Set the default target output to 330 ppi for print resolution.
- Click OK.
- Exporting to PDF (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuXspgRigGY or http://connect.lulu.com/en/discussion/32883)
- Go to File -> Export
- On the Create PDF/XPS Document, click on Create PDF/XPS
- A Publish as PDF or XPS window should appear allowing you to name the file.
- After naming the file, click on Options
- Make sure that under the PDF options section, the ISO 19005-1 compliant (PDF/A) option is selected.
- Click OK
- Click Publish.
Latex
This method uses Adobe Acrobat settings to produce a PDF with embedded text from an existing PDF file. This is done using the Adobe Acrobat Printer settings.
Prior to using Adobe Acrobat, Lulu.com provides a print setting file which can be used to ensure that all fonts are able to embed with the PDF. This file called “Job Options.zip” can be found at the link provided: https://us.v-cdn.net/6030295/uploads/editor/xq/wod9b4fqmp67.zip.
- Once the file is downloaded, extract the contents.
- There will be 2 files, a Lulu.joboptions file with no bleed and full-bleed Lulu.joboptions file
- Double-click on one of the file. This will open an Adobe PDF Settings window.
- Click on the Save As then Save to add it onto the printer settings.
- Click on OK to close the window and repeat with the other file.
To embed the fonts in your existing PDF file, follow the instructions below:
- Open the file in Adobe Acrobat
- Go to File -> Print
- For select Adobe PDF as your printer. (If this option is not available, close the window and then go to Help -> Repair Installation. If this does not fix the issue, please refer to the Adobe site for additional help.)
- Click on the Properties
- Under the Adobe PDF Settings, go to the Default Settings option and select either Lulu or Full Bleed Lulu.
- In the case that there are fonts in the document that are not available in your system font files, unselect the Rely on systems fonts only, do not use document fonts.
- Click OK.
- Click on Print and a Save PDF File As window will appear to assign a location and name for the document. Do not overwrite the existing one used to create the new document.
- Once you have named the document, click Save.
- A new document will appear shortly with the text embedded.
