1. Do one of the following:
Adobe PDF conversion settings Part 2
Customize Adobe PDF settings
You may want to create custom conversion settings for specific jobs or output devices. The selections you make determine whether the document fonts are embedded and subset at 100%. The selections determine how vector objects and images are compressed and sampled. The selections also determine whether the resulting PDF includes high-end printing information, such as OPI (Open Prepress Interface) comments. Default settings files cannot be modified, but can be duplicated to help create new settings files.
Note
If the PDF is intended for high-end printing, ask your service provider for their custom .joboptions file with the recommended output resolution and other settings. This way, the PDF you give them will have characteristics optimized for your print workflow.
Create a custom Adobe PDF settings file
In Acrobat Distiller, select one of the predefined sets of options from the Default Settings menu to use as a starting point, and then choose Settings > Edit Adobe PDF Settings.
In authoring applications or utilities, select Adobe PDF as the target printer—typically in the Page Setup or Print dialog boxes—and click Properties.
(Windows) In the Acrobat PDFMaker dialog box, click Advanced Settings in the Settings tab.
Note: In Windows, you can switch to a different preset from within the Adobe PDF Settings dialog box. Select Show All Settings at the lower-left and then select a preset from the list on the left.
Adobe PDF Settings dialog box (Windows) - 2. Select panels one at a time, and make changes as needed.
- 3. Save your customized preset in one of the following ways:
Click OK to save a duplicate of the custom preset file, which will automatically be renamed. For example, if you edit the Press Quality preset, your first customized version appears as Press Quality (1).
Click Save As, type a new descriptive name for the file, and click Save.
The custom file is saved in Windows 11 (64-bit), Windows 10 version 1810 or later (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows 8, 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)†, Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit), or Windows Server - 2008 R2 (64 bit), 2012 (64 bit), 2012 R2 (64 bit)†, 2016 (64 bit), or 2019 (64 bit)
User/[user name]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Adobe PDF/Settings, or (macOS) Users/[user name]/Library/Application Support/Adobe PDF/Settings.
Delete custom Adobe PDF settings files
1. In Acrobat Distiller, choose Settings > Remove Adobe PDF Settings.
2. Select the custom file and click Remove.
3. Repeat step 2 as needed, and then click Cancel to close the Remove Adobe PDF Settings dialog box.
Adobe PDF settings
The Acrobat Distiller Adobe PDFMaker Settings > Edit Adobe PDF Settings contains panels of options that you can select to customize your PDF output.
General panel options
Use this panel to select a version of Acrobat for file compatibility and other file and device settings.
Compatibility Sets the compatibility level of the PDF. Use the most recent version (in this case, version 1.7) to include all the latest features and functionality. If you’re creating PDFs that will be distributed widely, choose an earlier level, to ensure that all users can view and print the document.
Object Level Compression Compresses structural information (such as bookmarks, accessibility, and noncompressible objects), hiding the information and making it unusable in Acrobat 5.0 or Reader 5.0. Tags Only compresses structural information. Off applies no compression.
Auto-Rotate Pages Automatically rotates pages according to the direction of text.
Note
If Process DSC Comments is selected in the Advanced panel and if %%Viewing Orientation comments are included, these comments take precedence in determining page orientation.
Collectively By File Rotates all pages to match the orientation of the majority of text in the document.
Individually Rotates each page based on the orientation of the text on that page.
Off Prevents pages from rotating.
Binding Specifies whether to display a PDF with left-side or right-side binding. The Binding setting affects the look and feel of pages in the Two-Up Continuous view and the look and feel of thumbnails side by side.
Resolution Use for PostScript files to emulate resolutions based on the printer they are printing to. Permitted values range from 72 to 4000. Use the default setting unless you plan to print the PDF on a specific printer while emulating the resolution defined in the original PostScript file.
Note
Increasing the resolution setting increases file size and may slightly increase the time required to process some files.
Pages Specifies which pages to convert to PDF.
Embed Thumbnails Embeds a thumbnail preview for each page in the PDF, increasing the file size. Deselect this setting when users of Acrobat 5.0 and later will view and print the PDF. The versions generate thumbnails dynamically each time you select the Pages panel of a PDF.
Optimize For Fast Web View Restructures the file for faster access (page-at-a-time downloading, or byte serving) from web servers. This option compresses text and line art, overriding compression selections on the Images panel.
Default Page Size Specifies the page size to use when one is not specified in the original file. EPS files give a bounding box size, not a page size.
Images panel options
The options in the Images panel specify compression and resampling for color, grayscale, and monochrome images. You may want to experiment with these options to find an appropriate balance between file size and image quality.
The resolution setting for color and grayscale images should be 1.5 to 2 times the line screen ruling at which the file will be printed. The resolution for monochrome images should be the same as the output device. However, saving a monochrome image at a resolution higher than 1500 dpi increases the file size without noticeably improving image quality. Images that will be magnified, such as maps, may require higher resolutions.
Note
Resampling monochrome images can have unexpected viewing results, such as no image display. If this happens, turn off resampling and convert the file again. This problem is most likely to occur with subsampling, and least likely with bicubic downsampling.
The following table shows common types of printers and their resolution measured in dpi. It also depicts default screen ruling measured in lines per inch (lpi), and a resampling resolution for images measured in pixels per inch (ppi). For example, if you were printing to a 600-dpi laser printer, you would enter 170 for the resolution at which to resample images.
Printer resolution | Default line screen | Image resolution |
300 dpi (laser printer) | 60 lpi | 120 ppi |
600 dpi (laser printer) | 85 lpi | 170 ppi |
1200 dpi (imagesetter) | 120 lpi | 240 ppi |
2400 dpi (imagesetter) | 150 lpi | 300 ppi |
Downsample (Off) Reduces image resolutions that exceed the For Images Above value to the resolution of the output device by combining pixels in a sample area of the image to make one larger pixel.
Average Downsampling To Averages the pixels in a sample area and replaces the entire area with the average pixel color at the specified resolution.
Subsampling To Replaces an entire area with a pixel selected from that sample area, at the specified resolution. Causes faster conversion time than downsampling, but resulting images are less smooth and continuous.
Bicubic Downsampling To Uses a weighted average, instead of a simple average (as in downsampling) to determine pixel color. This method is slowest but produces the smoothest tonal gradations.
Compression/Image Quality Applies compression to color, grayscale, and monochrome images. For color and grayscale images, also sets the image quality.
Anti-Alias To Gray Smooths jagged edges in monochrome images. Choose 2 bit, 4 bit, or 8 bit to specify 4, 16, or 256 levels of gray. (Anti-aliasing may cause small type or thin lines to look blurry.)
Note
Compression of text and line art is always on. To turn it off, set the appropriate Distiller parameter. For details, see the SDK information on the Acrobat Developer Center at www.adobe.com/go/learn_acr_devcenter_en (PDF, English only).
Policy Opens the Image Policy dialog box, where you can set processing options for Color, Grayscale, and Monochrome images that are less than the resolutions you specify. For each type of image, enter a resolution value, and then choose Ignore, Warn And Continue, or Cancel Job.
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