Design & Print: PDF for full bleed printing

[jch2103]

I'm working with Design & Print for a possible photo book of recent travel with a group of friends. I'm planning to create a PDF from D&P to send to an online book printing company. I'm also planning to use full bleed in the D&P layouts (i.e., no white margins for the images). In my previous experiences with photo book printing, I know that because of uncertainties in the printing process, some care has to be taken with full bleed layouts to ensure that images are printed up to the physical page margin.

I'd appreciate insights anyone may have about how to ensure desired printing results when using D&P to print to a PDF and then send the PDF to a printer. For example, the first step in a D&P document is choosing a page size, e.g., U.S. Letter. According to https://www.lasvegascolor.com/full-bleed-layouts/ (from a digital printing service), I need allow at least 1/4 inch space for full bleed. Software from print services explicitly takes this into account. However, I'm not clear how to apply this to using D&P, creating a PDF and sending the result to a printer. 

Any advice would be appreciated.

[sinus]

John,
I would select "Custom" when choosing the paper size in D&P. There you can choose your own size.
That means, if I want to have a size of 20x20 centimeter for the final print, then I would choose the size 20.5 x 20.5 centimeter in IMatch.
The size of this "security margin" (which will be trimmed later) can often be found out at the print shop.

I'm not sure there's another way in IMatch now, but I don't think so.
To my knowledge, bleeding is not provided for in the settings of the "Page properties".

In InDesign you can adjust this to these properties, but in the end IMatch is not a real DTP program, but D&P offers a lot, a lot for a DAM, I think.
As you can see in the help pages, you can do a lot with IMach.

Good luck and have fun.

[Mario]

You can either enter a slightly larger page size in D&P (like, Letter, plus a few mm on each side for bleed) or you specify a custom size when you produce the PDF.

Design & Print does not include "pro"-print features like an dedicated bleed management, crop marks or suchlike. As sinus said, its not a full.featured DTP application.
The key feature in D&P is automating things and the ability to access and work with all the metadata in your images.

You can of course specify a custom page size add crop marks etc. yourself in D&P at the right places. It's flexible enough and does not limit you in that respect.

I recommend making a sample page / PDF and send it to your printer for review. The PDF driver you have installed (Windows built-in or 3rd party) also has a large impact on the outcome.

[ubacher]

This interests me too.
I have created pdf's of various sizes but just to view.
I had to go through some hoops to set the page size for the Print to PDF conversion since, by default, it
only produces standard paper sizes. I assume this also applies for books to print.

Also to consider is that the (hard) cover of a book needs to have a different size from the inner pages.
This mandates  separate pdfs for cover and body.

[Mario]

I had to go through some hoops to set the page size for the Print to PDF conversion since, by default, it
only produces standard paper sizes. I assume this also applies for books to print.

I assume you mean the page size options offered to you by the built-in PDF printer driver in Windows 10?
It does not offer many options and is not really suitable for pre-press PDF generation.
There are other, better, PDF drivers for that purpose. Which allow for custom page sizes, among other things.

[sinus]

This interests me too.
I have created pdf's of various sizes but just to view.
I had to go through some hoops to set the page size for the Print to PDF conversion since, by default, it
only produces standard paper sizes. I assume this also applies for books to print.

Also to consider is that the (hard) cover of a book needs to have a different size from the inner pages.
This mandates  separate pdfs for cover and body.

Ubacher, You can choose other formats than the standard formats, see my attachment. Please don't ask me how I did it, I know I had to google something, but sorry, I really don't remember it right now.

But those formats I made work fine.
I tried the Adobe - driver with IMatch directly, but I never had really success, hence I use the driver from Microsoft and if necessary, I change something later with Adobe Acrobat or so.

Of course it would be nice if you could just enter a value for bleeding in the properties of IMatch (where you can set some things), but few users need that and as I said, you can do it with IMatch, just not as easy as "InDesign and Co." - but for the cost of a real DTP program you can just buy some licenses of IMatch.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

[Mario]

Here is an explanation of how to add custom page sizes to the Windows 10 Print to PDF driver:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware-winpc/microsoft-print-to-pdf-custom-paper-sizes-possible/90ed3d48-1ece-4ca5-8d3b-ff0af24a7b37

(It's not for the faint hearted, though).

Some printers also just take A4 / Letter PDF files and print them on RA or SRA page sizes. This may not be sufficient for bleed or color control markers, depending on how you setup your layout. Best to design your pages with an extra 3mm bleed all around in IMatch D&P and then use a print driver which allows you to dial in the exact page size (including the bleed area).

[Jingo]

Just to add to this - many print companies offer templates that show the exact PDF size specifications for a finished product.  Some companies are lenient with PDF output sizing and will "fill in the gap" automatically for you.. while others are very strict and will not accept the file unless it 100% matches the requested sizing.

As Markus mentioned, Indesign allows you to define specific bleed and slug info outside and above the indicated page size along with margins and then provides a visual guide to show where these boundaries are.  Following his and Mario's advice should allow you to get great results in IMatch as well.. but, if having a template PDF for a specific output size would be helpful for comparison, I'm happy to generate these for you in Indesign if you provide the parameters.

Good luck with the album! - Andy.

[jch2103]

Thank you all for the information!

I'll need to review all this carefully, and also consider the pros and cons of the alternative of using dedicated software from one of the online book printing services, e.g., BookWright from blurb.com (https://support.blurb.com/hc/en-us/articles/207792666-Full-Bleed-Layouts-in-BookWright). Blurb (and likely others) also has PDF to book specifications (http://www.blurb.com/make/pdf_to_book/booksize_calculator#book-attributes) for the PDF page dimensions if I go the D&P route. If I did this more often, I might consider InDesign, etc., but that doesn't make much sense for my limited use case.

Thanks again!

[Mario]

If you need to do something really specific that's not possible in D&P, you can combine D&P output with a DTP software like InDesign, MS Publisher or Scribus.
And if you have a DTP software and you don't need the automation and dynamic features of D&P, or metadata, you can create the book directly in your DTP software.

[sinus]

Thank you all for the information!

I'll need to review all this carefully, and also consider the pros and cons of the alternative of using dedicated software from one of the online book printing services, e.g., BookWright from blurb.com (https://support.blurb.com/hc/en-us/articles/207792666-Full-Bleed-Layouts-in-BookWright). Blurb (and likely others) also has PDF to book specifications (http://www.blurb.com/make/pdf_to_book/booksize_calculator#book-attributes) for the PDF page dimensions if I go the D&P route. If I did this more often, I might consider InDesign, etc., but that doesn't make much sense for my limited use case.

Thanks again!

Well, it depends fully, what you want to do, you did not give some more information about this.
The strength of D&P from IMatch is, that you can pull out images and information in these images from your Database.

If you only want to print about 10 pictures on 20 pages, then in my opinion you have the free choice.
You can use D&P, but you can even use Word (which has also improved for DTP things) or pure DTP products like InDesign.

If you don't want to create a super-layout and/or create sophisticated designs, then you can really do a lot with D&P.
It offers more than you think.

InDesign is an expensive product (I think), of course offers almost everything. But if you want to make "normal" books in year 2, it is worth considering whether this is worthwhile.
As already mentioned, you can use Word and then create a pdf.

But if you want to use 50 or more images with metadata (such as Headline, City, Exif...) from your IMatch database, then IMatch is unbeatable in terms of simplicity, speed and economy.

You can also, as Mario has already mentioned, create a complex design page that would not be possible with D&P and that you created in Word, simply put into D&P's PDF.

If you look at the help pages of D&P, there are already excellent examples and there are also some excellent templates, integrated in D&P.
Here are a few examples of what D&P has to offer (but her not sophisticated). And I'm sure other users have many more and better examples.

Good luck, would be nice, if you would draw us then your way on occasion.

[Jingo]

Thank you all for the information!

I'll need to review all this carefully, and also consider the pros and cons of the alternative of using dedicated software from one of the online book printing services, e.g., BookWright from blurb.com (https://support.blurb.com/hc/en-us/articles/207792666-Full-Bleed-Layouts-in-BookWright). Blurb (and likely others) also has PDF to book specifications (http://www.blurb.com/make/pdf_to_book/booksize_calculator#book-attributes) for the PDF page dimensions if I go the D&P route. If I did this more often, I might consider InDesign, etc., but that doesn't make much sense for my limited use case.

Thanks again!

Thx John - I would try to steer you clear of the dedicated software route unless you are only going to create a "one and done" type book.  I work extensively with Blurb and while I love them for printing (I actually started the "Hire an Expert" program) - their software is not ideal to work with.  Primarily, the main problem with these apps is you are "locked into" printing with them.  If you want to print with someone else down the road - out of luck.  Using more generic software like Imatch or Indesign gives you the freedom to export a PDF file is whichever format the printer requests.  Like Markus says - Indesign is an expensive product and quite complex to learn/use - but just keep the software limitation for Blurb (or MPix/Shutterfly, etc) in mind when choosing your approach.... I have helped many many clients out of this situation over the years!

Good Luck! - Andy.