Help: Creating a Magazine with Adobe InDesign®

The best way to create a great magazine is to start with a great PDF. Here are some tips for creating a MagCloud PDF in Adobe InDesign®, QuarkXPress® and other programs. If you have any issues try the common problems that people have when making a PDF.

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Adobe InDesign®: Document Settings

Unsure about any of these settings? Download a template for Adobe InDesign® or find out more about InDesign at www.adobe.com/products/indesign.

Adobe InDesign®: Bleed

There is always some amount of variations in the printing, trimming and binding process. If you have images or other design elements that extend to the edge of the page, you need to design your document with bleeds to account for these variations and prevent unwanted white lines at the edges of the pages. To do so, your images should extend beyond the trimmed page size (8.25" × 10.75") and into the bleed area (8.5" × 11"). Be aware of whether your page will appear on the left or right side once it’s printed and bound, and make sure your bleed is handled appropriately (0.125" top and bottom, 0" inside, 0.25" outside).

At the same time, objects that do not bleed to the edge should have a margin of at least 0.25" to the edge of the trimmed page such that they are placed within the live area (8" × 10.25" on a single page or 16" × 10.25" on a double page spread).

Adobe InDesign®: Color Settings

MagCloud utilizes high end digital presses with color management capabilities. For best results, images should be specified in RGB space with an embedded ICC profile. However, if the images have already been converted to CMYK space, they should print just fine as well. Black text on a plain white background should be specified as K-only (CMYK = 0, 0, 0, 100%) and not tagged with an ICC profile. Black text on a colored background may benefit as a darker rich black when it is specified in RGB space (RGB = 0, 0, 0).

Adobe InDesign®: Exporting to PDF

When exporting to PDF, please ensure the following:

  • Embed all fonts and include all ICC profiles.
  • PDF must not be password protected or read-only.
  • Final page size is 8.5" × 11" for all pages in the document.
  • Total number of pages must be a multiple of 4 (minimum: 4, maximum: 100).
  • Final file size must not exceed 200 MB.

Export Adobe PDF: Marks and Bleeds

The High Quality Print preset is a good starting point for setting the correct PDF options. On the Marks and Bleeds pane, be sure to check Use Document Bleed Settings.

To help prevent your PDF from exceeding the maximum allowable file size, the following compression settings are recommended:

  • Bicubic downsampling down to 300 DPI for color and grayscale images above 300 DPI.
  • High or Medium image quality.
  • Crop Image Data to Frames is selected.

Export Adobe PDF: Compression