Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
In this, the last part of the Learning Scribus series, we will discuss exporting to the Adobe PDF format. While PDF is not exactly an 'open' file format it is easily the most widely used file format and means that your file will be viewable in Linux, Mac and Windows. Many professional print houses also accept PDF for printing.
As ever, Let's see what we have in Scribus first:
To export to PDF we go to main menu and choose File > Save as PDF Which gives us the Pre- Flight Verifier: This window may seem like a pest at times, always interrupting your PDF exports, but it is absolutely crucial that your document is created and exported properly to get a valid, and usable PDF.
The drop down menu at the top right of the Pre-Flight Verifier window is to let you choose which version (or Profile) of PDF you want to export to. 'PDF 1.4' is about the best option to choose here. If you choose 'PDF 1.3' or any other option you run the risk of losing any fancy transparency you may have done.
Below the drop down menu is a list of your document pages and any conflicts that Scribus finds between your document and the PDF Profile you have chosen in the drop down menu. Here I've chosen the profile for 'PDF 1.3' and you can see it has given me a long list of errors, this is due to the semi-transparent numbers I put on the blank pages in a previous tutorial. When I change the profile back to 'PDF 1.5' I only have one error and that is a text overflow on page one. That is acceptable as the text is indeed too long for the text boxes on page one but it is only filler text and not important. You will also get warnings if any shape objects are not on a page properly.
So that's my one error and it's totally acceptable so I click th 'Ignore Errors' button.
TIP You can call up the Pre-Flight Verifier window any time by clicking its button
Now we have the actual export settings:
At the top of the window is 'Output to File'. This is where you will save the PDF and what you want to name it. If you wish you can export each page as a separate file by simply checking the box below the file location box.
This window has seven tabs (a seventh will be available if you choose the 'PDF/X-3' Profile) we'll work through these from left to right starting with the General tab.
Export range lets you export the entire document (All Pages) or export selected pages (Choose Pages), with the button checked for Choose Pages you can enter something like: 1-3,5. That would export pages one through three and also print page five. Rotation, as it sounds, lets you rotate the pages in the exported PDF.
File options lets you choose a new PDF Profile (Compatability) and a margin for binding. You can then check boxes for generating thumbnails, including bookmarks and so on. Last option hee is the resolution for EPS 9vector) graphics, 300 dpi is for professional quality printing.. If you are creating a document for viewing on screen or want to keep your file size down you could set this to 100dpi.
Compress Text and Vector Graphics will dramatically change your file size. Compression Method is set. By default, at Automatic and quality is set at Maximum. Again, these are for professional quality printing. I can't say choose 'Lossy JPG' for the best method but if you have to change it from Automatic I'd say choose 'Lossless ZIP', For quality I'd recommend you keep it at Maximum as otherwise it will start to heavily compress your images and your PDF will look quite dirty and grainy.
Fonts is the tab where we can see which fonts we've used and most importantly which fonts will be embedded into the PDF. If a font you've used is not available on the reader's computer then you'd hit problems, thankfully this is overcome by embedding the fonts into the PDF file so it is important to click the Embed All button to save getting errors.
Be careful here as you cannot embed all fonts, some bought fonts come with licenses that do not allow embedding. The Extras tab gives access to presentation effects:
This is to effectively create a PDF slide-show. Something I doubt would be welcome at your local print shop!
The viewer tab is very important for the display of your document.
Some PDF files will come as 'Single Page' where you scroll down viewing one page at a time. But some documents come displayed as an open book (Double Page) with two pages on screen at once. Document Layout is where this setting is selected. Double Page has a Left and Right option, this is where your front page will be. Right is what most European publications would use. Visual Appearance is where you can use the PDF viewer applications' default settings or force other options such as full screen, display thumbnails and so on. Special Actions is rarely used but may come in handy if you want to execute some java-script on opening a PDF.
Security is where you can encrypt your PDF with a password. You can also allow or prevent such things as printing, copying text and such like. {seems like that function was used a lot in this series}
Colour tab has some settings for either 'Screen/Web', 'Printer' or 'Grayscale'. Most of the time you will use Screen/Web.
Pre-Press is for adding the information that professional printers need and cannot be fully used unless you activated color management and used PDF/X-3. If you aren't using a commercial printer just ignore it.
After you have sifted through the options you click Save and hope for the best! {¾ fail in this series - blocked copy!!!!!} If it's your first time exporting a document to PDF then it will take a few tries to get it just the way you want it.
In closing, there are some things you must remember while exporting your document:
Do not rely on user changeable options – such as menu bars – for presentations as the user can easily turn these back on again possibly making your document look ugly.
It is best not to let your document go full screen as some viewer applications may not ask or give a warning which may frighten viewers when the screen goes blank and flickers!
The Pre-Flight Verifier is your friend, heed its warnings! You can click on an error in the Verifier window and it will jump to that page and highlight what, or where, the error is located.
Think about your readers, if they are viewing your document on a slow computer or n old laptop then you really do not want to use the 'open book' format as their machine may be too old to quickly display two pages at once.
To edit what is checked or unchecked in this document's Export PDF window you can do the File > Document Set-up menu.
And that brings us to the end of my Learning Scribus series. I hope you've enjoyed it. I've seen some great things.
Ref: http://showmedo.com/videotutorials/series?name=NfUrduNov Scribus video tutorials.