Adobe Express: download a PDF for print

Adobe Express can download a PDF made for printing, with crop marks, bleed and a CMYK color mode. This guide walks through those settings, explains what the choices mean for a non-specialist, and shows how CMYKflow fits in when your printer asks for a CMYK file or complains about the amount of ink.

Before you download: margins and bleed

Adobe Express has settings for margins and bleed in the editor. Margins show you where important content should stay so it is not trimmed off. Bleed is the extra area beyond the edge of the page: if your background or a photo goes right to the edge, extend it into the bleed so there is no white sliver after trimming. Adobe’s help describes custom values for top, left, bottom and right, with a lock icon to keep them equal. Ask your printer how much bleed they need.

Step by step

1. Open your design and select Download

   Open the file in Adobe Express and select Download.

2. Turn on crop marks and bleed if needed

   Select Add crop marks and Show bleed when your printer wants the file with marks and bleed. If you are not sure, ask; many online printers only want the bleed.

3. Choose PDF Print as the file format

   Under File format, select PDF Print, which Adobe labels as best for printing.

4. Choose the color mode

   Adobe’s help says the color mode defaults to CMYK (Express manages the colors) and that you can pick RGB (the printer manages the colors) instead. Then select Download to save the PDF.

5. Upload the PDF to CMYKflow

   Open cmykflow.com, sign in, and upload the PDF you just downloaded.

6. Choose Safer for press (and Convert to CMYK for an RGB file)

   For an RGB PDF, Convert to CMYK converts the colors for offset printing. For either kind of PDF, Safer for press lowers the total ink in dark and neutral areas by replacing part of the cyan, magenta and yellow with black. Pick Light, Medium or Strong.

7. Check the preview and download the print file

   Compare the ink before and after, look through the four ink plates and the watermarked preview, then download the full print-ready PDF for your printer.

CMYK or RGB from Adobe Express?

This choice decides who converts your screen colors into ink colors.

• CMYK from Adobe Express. Express converts the colors when you download. Adobe’s help says the profiles are preselected based on your region and are shown under Advanced settings. When you upload this PDF to CMYKflow, Convert to CMYK leaves the CMYK colors as they are, because they are already converted. Safer for press still works on them: in a test with a CMYK rich black of 75/68/67/90 (300% ink), Safer for press Medium returned 48/43/43/97, about 231%.
• RGB from Adobe Express. The PDF keeps the screen colors and CMYKflow converts them using GRACoL 2013, a standard profile for offset printing on coated paper, capped at 320% total ink.

If your printer gave you a specific profile or said “send RGB, we convert”, follow what they say. Printers know their own paper and press.

Why lower the ink at all?

Printers add up the four ink percentages at any point of the page and call it total ink coverage, or total area coverage. A dark background made from all four inks adds up quickly: the near-black background of our poster example came to 290% after a plain CMYK conversion. Too much ink takes longer to dry, can rub off onto the next sheet, and some print shops reject files above their limit. Safer for press lowers that number while keeping the color, mainly by using more black ink and less of the other three. In our honey label example, the dark brown panel went from 276% (plain CMYK) to 174% with Safer for press Medium. The full explanation is in What is total ink coverage.

Things to check before printing

• Bright colors. Very saturated screen colors cannot all be printed; check the preview and ask for a proof if a color is critical.
• Thin lines and small text in rich colors can look soft if the press is slightly out of register. Pure black text is safest.
• Password. CMYKflow cannot open password-protected PDFs, so download without a password.
• One standard. CMYKflow converts to GRACoL 2013. If your printer insists on another profile, ask before sending.