Are you sick and tired of your projects not turning out exactly as you expected? Perhaps the printed version of your designs doesn’t precisely match the colors you spent hours deliberating over, even when using premium-quality software like Photoshop. After all of the effort you put into making your designs and photographs look as professional as possible, something can and will go wrong.
Designers across the world, the solution is simple: switch to PDFs.
What is PDF?
PDF (portable document format) is a type of file format that displays texts and images in the same way they were created, regardless of what device or platform the user is on. Every digital page contains an assortment of assets, including text, links, fonts, and even interactive links and video.
Top 5 Reasons Professional Designers Rely on PDFs
Below, we’ll quickly go over the top five reasons designers swear by this file format.
Accurate Format Retention
Allow us to set the scene: you’ve spent countless hours musing over your design, cropping and resizing it to perfection. After who knows how long, you’ve finally gotten your poster/brochure/banner done right. The only thing left to do is save it and send it to a client. Job well done.
Don’t celebrate just yet. Perhaps the ratio is all wrong, it’s been inexplicably cropped, or maybe, by the universe’s will, your client just wasn’t meant to see your work in all of its glory. This wouldn’t have happened if you saved your work as a PDF.
PDFs retain the formatting and aspect ratio of the original creation, ensuring that all users—whether they’re on an outdated mobile device or have an 8K monitor—will see your creation as you intended.
Maintain Perfect Hues
Perhaps the most frustrating thing designers have to deal with is colors. Screen differences can contribute to the color disparity, but you can eliminate this by switching to PDFs.
Print shops’ go-to file format as PDFs due to how well they maintain color fidelity. You and your clients can rest assured knowing that the exact colors on your screen will appear on the physical print-out. Generally speaking, all you have to do is set the correct color code prior to pressing Ctrl + P.
Keeps Fonts Regardless of Whether Clients Have Them
Let’s face it: our clients aren’t always the brightest people when it comes to design. That’s why they hired you, right? But what if they don’t have the right font installed on their computer? Obviously, the finger of blame is pointed in your direction. You can avoid This uncomfortable exchange and tedious task of explaining how to download fonts by saving your work as a PDF file.
The great thing about PDFs is that the typeface is embedded into the file, allowing users to share their work without having to share their proprietary fonts. If your client hasn’t purchased that fancy and costly font you used as a foundation for your work, saving your design as a PDF guarantees that they won’t have to.
Infinite Size Options
Since scanners save scanned documents as PDFs by default, most people think that PDFs are limited to just A4 or Letter-size pages. That’s not the case—PDF files can be any size you like.
You can create humongous banners in your photo-editing software of choice and save as or convert it to a PDF. Remember how PDFs maintain their aspect ratio? That means you can expand or reduce its size as far as you like, from tiny wallet-sized photos to banners that take up the entire side of a building. Don’t fret over the whole DPI conundrum; you can save PDFs to match your client’s precise size requirements without sacrificing image quality.
Security, Markup, and Sharing
We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the wide range of amazing PDF editing tools.
Converting: There are countless ways you can save your work as a PDF file. Your favorite design software should come with a Save As a function that lets you choose which format to use. Alternatively, you can use free online PDF editors like PDFChef by Movavi to handle your converting to and from PDF needs.
Crop: With PDFs, you can set bleed margins in your design file to remove marks and tell printers where to stop.
Embed Video: If you’re making a fancy digital brochure, one way to impress your client and their customers is by embedding video directly into the PDF file.
Markup: The PDF file is your oyster. You can highlight, leave comments, modify, and even add/remove text to make your PDF as visually appealing as possible.
Security: PDF tools, both online and off, can allow you to add passwords or encrypt your work, ensuring that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
Ready to Make the Change to PDFs?
PDFs are just used in office settings anymore. Designers, students, and everyone in between can feel the awesome benefits of what this magnificent file format has to offer. After reading this guide, you should have a pretty good idea of why designers swear by the PDF format.
