Why is a PDF exported from inDesign so much bigger than I expect?

November 5, 2010 12:16 PM

I created a 20x28 inch poster in inDesign that I then exported to PDF. However, the exported PDF is much bigger than 20x28. Why is that?

The cardboard I want to mount the poster on is exactly 20x28 so I was hoping the printed output would be the same (my plan was to tile the printed PDF onto 6 letter sized pages). I tried scaling the PDF down but that just seemed to throw the proportions off and I was never able to get it even close to 20x28.

So, my questions are, 1) why exactly is the exported PDF so much bigger than the size specified in inDesign and 2) if I want to create a poster to an exact size (via tiling printed pages) how do I do that? Is there a setting in inDesign that will insure the exported PDF is the same size?

posted by gfrobe to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

It could be that the Export function is adding room for crop marks or bleeds. Try using one of the Adobe PDF Presets that doesn't use bleeds or crops, such as [High Quality Print]. They are listed right above the Export option.

If you are printing this yourself, you could print right from InDesign. It has a decent tiling function.
posted by spakto at 12:39 PM on November 5, 2010

InDesign DOES export at the specified size (unless you've added bleed as noted above). What program are you viewing the pdf in? Is there a reason why you're printing from a pdf file rather than directly from InDesign?

(My guess is that InDesign is exporting at 300dpi and your pdf reader is viewing at 72dpi, which would indeed cause a massive scaling difference. It's hard to say without knowing more specifics, though.)
posted by ella wren at 1:20 PM on November 5, 2010

There are a dozen reasons this might happen. Printing from InDesign would probably avoid most of them.

A pdf specifies the destination paper size; is it set to 20x28 or letter? Are you relying on the PDF viewing app to tile for you? This is PDF viewing app is what I'd believe to be the culprit. What program are you printing the PDF from? Is it Preview.app (the mac default)?
posted by fontophilic at 1:24 PM on November 5, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks for the responses. I actually don't know why I didn't just print from inDesign. I guess that's my solution. However, the added size is not bleed and crop marks as I can turn those off in Adobe Acrobat Pro (the program I'm using) and the size is still not right (the 28 inch side is coming out as 33 inches on the PDF, which is a fairly large difference).

The PDF paper destination size is set to Letter (as I'm just printing from a standard color printer). As for the PDF viewing app, as mentioned above, it's Adobe Acrobat Pro (windows
version).

I think Ella might be right as I'm exporting in 300dpi. I'll have to check to see what Adobe is viewing at though. I thought it automatically viewed in the resolution of the document.
posted by gfrobe at 4:17 PM on November 5, 2010

PosteRazor is a free, open-source, multiple-platform program that will split a large image into a multiple-page PDF to print.
posted by limeonaire at 5:16 PM on November 5, 2010

I think ella wren has it. I couldn't count the number of times I did that in Photoshop.
posted by putzface_dickman at 7:22 PM on November 5, 2010

Could you post a test PDF for us? It doesn't need to be the full poster. Make a new layer with a 20x28 grey box. Turn off your poster layers and export using the exact same settings that you would use for the real poster.

If that's not possible, measure the poster in Acrobat using the ruler tool. Is it 28x20?

I don't have InDesign at home -- and haven't had any coffee yet -- but I'm guessing one of two things is going on:

1. You have a slug area set and are including slug are in the export. Go to File -> Document Setup and see if you have values entered for slug area.
2. The 33" value you mention suggests an even multiple of letter sized pages. You mentioned something about setting the destination size to letter. That might make InDesign center your 20x28 poster for output on nine, letter-sized pages (25.5 x 33). This isn't the way to get tiled output out of InDesign. Like spatko mentioned, InDesign does have a basic tiling function taht will give you proper overlap between tiles.

(My guess is that InDesign is exporting at 300dpi and your pdf reader is viewing at 72dpi, which would indeed cause a massive scaling difference. It's hard to say without knowing more specifics, though.)

PDFs do not have a resolution but raster objects within them do. The resolution settings control downsampling of rasters -- this setting should not be confused with a hard, document resolution like in Photoshop.
posted by nathan_teske at 9:19 AM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Which version of InDesign are you using? Mac or PC?
posted by radioamy at 6:25 AM on November 7, 2010

How are you converting to PDF exactly? Printing? Exporting?
posted by radioamy at 6:27 AM on November 7, 2010

Playing around with my ID printing options. I always print to PDF rather than save as or export. In the "setup" section of the print dialog box, make sure that you set your page size to "custom" and then 20" x 28". Also make sure that your scaling is set to 100%.
posted by radioamy at 6:28 AM on November 7, 2010