PDF HELP

Many times clients receive their digital PDF proof for their book and they say one or all of these things:

1. Why are there blank pages in my document?
2. Why does my document print at the wrong size - didn't I give the correct trim size?
3. The images are blurry. Will they print that way? Can you please fix them?
4. I wanted to edit some of the content, but it won't let me. Why is the document locked?
5. The font is so small/large can we change to __ font size?

Now, there are quite a few more that I am sure I am forgetting at the moment, but, I thought I would address these. We'll do the others later, as the come along.

1. Why are there blank pages in my document?
• Almost all books have blank pages. Why? Well, most chapters always start on the right, therefor, if the previous chapter ends on the right, or "odd numbered" page, a blank page must proceed after it, to allow the next chapter to start on the right.
  The confusion lies in Adobe view options. I try to always set the open options on a document to "Continuous - Facing." This way, the client sees that the blank page isn't just sitting out there, all on it's own, but facing a chapter start.
  Sometimes though, I either forget to set these open options, or the client changes the view, causing single pages to be viewed one at a time.
  ...
2. Why does my document print at the wrong size - didn't I give the correct trim size?
• Check your print options. More than likely, you have not "unchecked" the check boxes that say: "Shrink oversized pages to paper size, Expand small pages to paper size, and Auto-Rotate and Center."
  If ANY of these are check, your document will not print at the size it was designed in.
  
  
  ...
3. The images are blurry. Will they print that way? Can you please fix them?
   
• I know, no, and no. The digital proof that I send to clients, most of the time, is screen-ready. Screen-ready is not press-ready. Screen-ready means it is ready to be viewed on your screen for proofing. If you zoom in, try to proof images by printing, etc. things will be pixilated and/or blurry. In the preliminary rounds of proofing, I try to save download time by making the file size of a document as small as possible. When it is time to proof the images, I will send a locked press-ready PDF for you to proof the images, and print them, to see how they will look. Which brings me to...
  ...
4. I wanted to edit some of the content, but it won't let me. Why is the document locked?
• Until the balance is paid on a job, the product is not delivered. Up until the completion of the job, I provide locked files that can be view and printed, nothing else. To submit edits to content, you need to site the page number, paragraph number, and line number, (all from the top of the page), and then provide the corrected text/image, etc.
  ...
5. The font is so small/large can we change to __ font size?
• Again, check that you are printing at the correct size and not using Adobe's "Shrink oversized pages to paper size, Expand small pages to paper size, and Auto-Rotate and Center" feature(s). Then, if there is still an issue with the font, note this in your corrections and I will address it.
  ...

Your question not addressed here? Feel free to contact me - I will do my best to give you an answer you can understand. (Sometimes the answers you get from the program help files can be quite confusing!)

Cheerio!