
Some programs, like Microsoft Word, don’t support CMYK color formatting. If you have a different program, consult the manufacturer’s documentation. You can further tweak each “PDF style” in the “Export as PDF” dialog window by clicking options. Downsamples grayscale with low compression.
Downsamples monochrome with lossless compression.
This creates a preset for print-ready file by doing the following:
Select “ Press- High Quality/High Resolution”.
Select the object you want to convert to CMYKįor objects with an outline, repeat the same process.īest practice for offset printing according to Quark is to export as PDF. Steps to formatting your artwork for CMYK: This can save designers a lot of time fine-tuning the results, as is often the case if you only convert your artwork to CMYK just before printing. When possible, any designs intended for print should have their color model changed to CMYK from the very beginning. Accurate colors are especially important for color branding and art reproductions, and neglecting to convert files from RGB can result in prints you may find unusable. This is especially obvious on larger prints such as posters. While results are often acceptable, this sometimes results in an unwelcome surprise as the final print may look quite different from how the design initially looked on the design tool. We previously discussed this topic in depth in an article titled Why Printing Uses CMYK and a video, RGB vs CMYK.īoth professional and home printers will often automatically convert RGB files to CMYK, since printers cannot use RGB as is. While your computer monitor uses an RGB (red, green, black) color model to get a better range of colors on a dark screen, printers almost universally use CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and “key color” black) to be able to get good results on white or light colored paper or cardstock. Printers use a fundamentally different color model from computer monitors and other electronic display devices. Why do I need to convert my files to CMYK? For this reason we recommend that you convert files from the default RGB to CMYK if you intend to print them. Neglecting to convert your files from RGB to CMYK before printing can cause significant discrepancies between how your artwork’s colors appear on screen and how they appear in print. We often get questions about how to properly format artwork for CMYK for good reason.