Monday, December 21, 2020

How to Save a PDF in Affinity Publisher (For Web & for Print)

When working with Affinity Publisher, you will often need to publish your work as a PDF document. PDF documents are one of the best ways to share your Affinity Publisher designs. Whether it's a printed brochure or a design brief proposal for a website, PDF will often be the document type that is expected for your clients.

In this quick tip, ill show you how to export to PDF from Affinity Publisher both for web and for print. We'll open or start a project with Affinity Publisher, edit PDF settings, and then export them as a PDF document.

What You'll Learn in This Tutorial

  • How to export as PDF for web with Affinity Publisher
  • How to export as PDF for print with Affinity Publisher

Follow along with us over on our Envato Tuts+ Youtube Channel:

What You'll Need

You will need an Affinity Publisher project file. This can be a project for either web or print that you've been working on or need to export as a PDF. 

We'll be using designs from Envato Elements by taking advantage of the fact that Affinity Publisher can import EPS files. This gives us a lot of options for Affinity Publisher templates!

For exporting to web, we'll be using this email enewsletter template from Envato Elements.

For exporting to print, we'll be using this project proposal template from Envato Elements.

Of course, you can use any project you want!

1. How Do I Save a PDF in Affinity Publisher for the Web?

Step 1

Open up your project, and then go to File > Export...

Affinity Publisher Open Project File

Step 2

This will open the export dialog window. By default, this will be set to PNG.

From the tabs, find and select the PDF icon.

Affinity Publisher Export Select PDF

Step 3

This will open the export options for PDF documents. When exporting to PDF for web from Affinity Publisher, we will want to consider file size in our choice.

From the preset dropdown, select PDF (digital - small size).

Affinity Publisher Edit PDF Settings Web

Step 4

The presets give us a good starting point. We chose digital to keep the file size low, this is always a good practice for delivering content on the web.

Let's review these settings!

Affinity Publishers Edit PDF Settings Web

Step 5

Raster DPI

The DPI is set to 72. This is usually a good bet as many monitors are set to 72 DPI. It's one of the most common DPI settings for digital media. This will keep our file size nice and low.

Affinity Publisher Edit PDF Settings DPI Web

Step 6

Include Bleed

The Include Bleed option will include the margin areas in your document. When working for print, we use the bleed to allow space around our design. Depending on how you designed your project, you may or may not have had this space in mind. If you're not sure, leave it unchecked.

Affinity Publisher Edit PDF Settings Bleed Web

Step 7

Preview Export When Complete

If this is checked, your Affinity Publisher PDF will open automatically when you export. Use this if it's convenient for your workflow.

Affinity Publisher Edit PDF Preview Web

Step 8

Area

By default, you will typically want the entire document to be included. However, with this dropdown, you can export part of your document based on your current selection.

Affinity Publisher Edit PDF Area Web

Step 9

When adjusting these settings, pay special attention to the estimated file size on the bottom left. If you're exporting a PDF for web, you probably have a good idea of what an acceptable file size is. For the most part, the raster DPI setting will have the most impact on this.

When you're happy with your settings, go ahead and click the Export button on the bottom right.

Affinity Publisher Edit PDF Export Web

Step 10

Now the export file dialog window will open.

Select a folder on your desktop, and then click the Save button.

There you have it! You have saved an Affinity Publisher PDF that's suitable for distribution on the web.

Affinity Publisher PDF Web Export

2. How Do I Save a PDF in Affinity Publisher for Print?

Step 1

With your chosen print project, go to File > Export...

Affinity Publisher Export PDF Print

Step 2

Now the export dialog window will open. This will be set to PNG by default. From the tabs, find and select the PDF icon.

Affinity Publisher Edit PDF Select Print

Step 3

Now the export options for PDF documents will be displayed. When exporting from Affinity Publisher for print, one of our major concerns will be quality.

From the preset dropdown, select PDF (for print).

Affinity Publisher Edit PDF Print

Step 4

This preset will give us a good starting point for our print-ready PDF. Let's review these settings!

Affinity Publisher Edit PDF Print Settings

Step 5

Raster DPI

The DPI is set to 300. This is a high DPI, which is usually the minimum you want when printing a document. Anything lower, and the quality of your document may suffer.

Affinity Publisher Edit PDF DPI Print

Step 6

Include Bleed

The Include Bleed option will include the margin areas in your document. As this export is intended for print, you may need this option selected. Projects which require bleeds would be books or newspapers. If what you plan to print has a bleed, you will want to have this checked.

Affinity Publisher Edit PDF Bleed Print

Step 7

Preview Export When Complete

If this is checked, your PDF will open automatically when you export. Use this if it's convenient for your workflow.

Affinity Publisher Edit PDF Preview Print

Step 8

Area

For the purposes of print, you will most certainly want to leave this unchecked. However, with this dropdown, you can export part of your document based on your current selection if you desire.

Affinity Publisher Edit PDF Area Print

Step 9

When adjusting these settings, you may want to pay attention to Estimated File Size on the bottom left. Don't worry too much when exporting for print—in fact, it's normal for print-ready projects to be rather large in file size. The high DPI will make sure of that! It's always a good idea to keep file size in mind, though.

Once you're happy with your settings, go ahead and click the Export button on the bottom right.

Affinity Publisher Edit PDF Export

Step 10

Now the export file dialog window will open.

Select a folder on your desktop and then click the Save button.

There you have it! You have saved a PDF document from Affinity Publisher that's suitable for print.

Affinity Publisher Save PDF Print

Why Export as PDF?

Exporting to PDF is one of the most accessible ways to distribute your work. Whether it is for delivery on the web or for print, it's going to be an option that just about anyone is going to be able to view. Most browsers can open up a PDF document with no problem, and with the web export settings, you can easily get your documents small enough to share them through email or place them on your website. For print, PDFs have a lot of printing options, making them a really easy way to deliver documents to clients ready for print, or even printing them yourself.

We hope you enjoyed this quick tip on how to export to PDF from Affinity Publisher. You should now be able to create documents in Affinity Publisher, edit PDFs, and export them. If you found this quick tip useful, check out these Affinity Publisher templates and tutorials.

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