Category
Print & Design
Typography, color, CMYK, page setup, and print-ready PDFs.
18 posts
Font Subsetting in PDF Explained
Open a PDF's font list and you will often see names like ABCDEE+Calibri — a six-letter prefix, a plus sign, then the font name. That prefix marks a subset: the…
PDF Transparency Flattening Explained
Transparency arrived in PDF 1.4 and immediately created a compatibility problem that has never fully gone away. Drop shadows, soft edges, blend modes and…
Spot Colours and Overprint in PDF
Two features that exist entirely for the printing press, that have no meaning on screen, and that cause a specific and expensive class of production error…
PDF Imposition Explained
Imposition is the arrangement of pages on a printed sheet so that, after folding and cutting, they appear in the right order. It is the reason page 1 of a…
Preparing a PDF for Professional Printing
A file that prints perfectly on your office laser can be rejected outright by a commercial printer, and the reasons are rarely obvious from looking at it…
How to Make a PDF Look Handwritten
Sometimes you need a PDF that looks handwritten, a personal thank-you letter, a casual invitation, a creative document, or an authentic-feeling signed note…
PDF for Photographers Portfolios
A photographer's portfolio in PDF form is a sophisticated, controllable, branded artifact you can email, drop on a USB stick, or upload to a website. It scales…
CMYK vs RGB in PDF: When Color Spaces Matter
Color in PDFs lives in a specific color space. RGB is what your monitor shows; CMYK is what printers use; there are several others. The right color space for…
Color Management in PDF
Color management is the discipline of reproducing color consistently across devices: a logo that looks the same on a designer's monitor, a client's iPad, a…
Embedded Fonts in PDF Explained
Open a PDF anywhere, your phone, a colleague's old laptop, a kiosk in an airport, and the document looks the same. The fonts render correctly even if the…
How to Change the Font in a PDF (And Why It Is Harder Than It Sounds)
If you have ever tried to change the font of a paragraph in a PDF and watched it stubbornly refuse, you have met one of the format's awkward truths: PDFs were…
How to Change PDF Background Color for Reading Comfort or Branding
A PDF's background is whatever color it was authored to be, almost always white, sometimes off-white, occasionally something brand-specific. Changing it after…
How to Change PDF Orientation Permanently
You open a PDF and one page is sideways. You rotate it in your reader, scroll on, and forget about it, until you send the file to someone else, who opens it…
How to Change PDF Page Size Without Losing Content
Every PDF page has a defined size, Letter, A4, A3, Legal, or some custom dimension. That size is baked into the file. When you need to change it, to fit a…
PDF/VT Explained: The Format Behind Personalized Bills, Statements, and Direct Mail
Every month, billions of personalized documents leave production print floors, utility bills, bank statements, insurance renewal packs, targeted direct mail…
How to Print a Booklet From a PDF (Folded Layout)
Printing a PDF as a booklet, folded pages, stapled in the middle, two pages per side of paper, is one of those tasks that nobody teaches but that comes up…
How to Print a PDF Correctly (Without Cutting Off Content)
A PDF is supposed to be the format that prints exactly as designed. When it does not — text cropped at the edge, everything slightly too small, blank sheets…
The Easiest Way to Add Page Numbers to a PDF
Page numbers matter more than they look. Without them, "the third paragraph on the page about indemnities" is the only way to point at something, which is fine…