Figma to print-ready CMYK PDF

Figma’s help lists sRGB and Display P3 as the color profiles for PDF export, not CMYK. That is fine for sharing, but a print shop usually wants CMYK, the four inks of a printing press. The good news: you do not need to rebuild your design in another app. Export a clean PDF from Figma and convert it.

Setting up a Figma frame for print

Figma works in pixels, while print works in millimetres or inches. The PDF export keeps the frame’s proportions, so the important part is the shape and the content of the frame.

• Use the right proportions. For an A5 flyer (148 × 210 mm), a frame of 1480 × 2100 keeps the same proportions. The PDF page has the frame’s proportions, so ask your printer whether they also need an exact page size in millimetres.
• Bleed. If a background or photo runs to the edge, the printer needs a few millimetres of extra image beyond the trim line. If you need bleed, make the frame slightly larger than the finished size, extend the background into that margin, and tell your printer which size is the trim size. Many printers ask for 3 mm (or 1/8 inch) on each side.
• Keep text away from the edge. Leave a safe margin so nothing important is cut off when the paper is trimmed.
• Photos. PDF export is at 1x, so place images that are large enough for the printed size.
• Blend modes. Figma’s help notes that Plus darker and Plus lighter are not supported in PDF exports. Check the exported PDF if you use them.

Step by step

1. Select the frame

   Click the frame you want to print. For a multi-page document, select all the frames, one frame per page.

2. Add a PDF export setting

   In the Export section of the right sidebar, click + and choose PDF as the format. For several frames at once you can also use File → Export (Shift + Cmd + E on Mac, Shift + Ctrl + E on Windows).

3. Export

   Click Export and save the PDF. Open it once to check that everything is there and nothing is cut off.

4. Upload the PDF to CMYKflow

   Go to cmykflow.com, sign in and upload the PDF. If Figma exported several separate PDFs, upload them one by one.

5. Choose Convert to CMYK, Safer for press, or both

   Convert to CMYK converts the RGB colors, photos and gradients to CMYK for offset printing. Safer for press converts and also lowers the ink in dark and neutral areas (Light, Medium or Strong, with optional Deeper blacks).

6. Check the preview, then download

   Look at the free watermarked preview, the ink figures and the four ink plates of the first page. Download the full print file when you are happy and send it to your printer.

What happens to Figma colors

Expect the colors in a Figma PDF to be RGB. CMYKflow converts them to CMYK using GRACoL 2013, a standard profile for offset printing on coated paper. If the PDF says which RGB profile its colors are in, CMYKflow uses that profile; if it does not, the colors are treated as sRGB. Converted colors are capped at 320% total ink, which keeps them inside what a press can normally handle.

Some screen colors cannot be printed. A glowing cyan, a neon green or a deep electric violet look great on a monitor because the screen emits light. Ink on paper can only absorb light, so those colors come out calmer. That is true for every CMYK conversion, not just this one. If one color is central to your brand, ask your printer for a proof, or pick a slightly calmer version in Figma that prints the same everywhere. RGB vs CMYK explained goes into the details.

Dark UI-style designs

Figma users often design dark posters or dark product cards in the same style as dark-mode screens. A large near-black area converts to a mix of all four inks, which can add up to a lot of ink on the paper. Our business card example has a dark navy background: the plain CMYK version used 256% total ink at its darkest point, Safer for press Medium 238%. On a big poster this matters even more; see Printing large dark backgrounds.

Black text

Small text should usually print with black ink only, so that it stays crisp even if the press is slightly out of register. In our tests, pure black (#000000) text and shapes came out as black ink only. Text in a dark grey such as #1E1E1E is a different color and is converted from RGB like any other color, which means it will use several inks. If you want black-only text, use pure black in Figma. More in Rich black vs plain black.

What CMYKflow cannot do

• It cannot open password-protected PDFs.
• It does not add bleed or crop marks and does not resize pages.
• It converts to one CMYK standard, GRACoL 2013. If your printer requires a specific different profile, ask them whether a GRACoL 2013 file is acceptable.