If you’ve self-published a book or are investigating the idea, you’ve likely come across ‘layers.’ Unless you’ve worked with complex images or graphic design software, there’s a very good chance you aren’t too familiar with layers.
So, what exactly are layers, and why do they matter? What’s the deal with flattening your layers to make a printable PDF?
Print Files Done Right
Lulu—and all the other publishers out there—like to tell would-be authors how easy it is to create a book. I know I’m guilty of this offense. And, if we want to get technical, publishing today is easy. Easier than it ever has been in the past, at least.
But easy doesn’t always mean simple.
Uploading a file and ordering a bound book from that file is easy. Uploading a file that will print exactly the way you want it to and create your book perfectly, now that’s a challenge. Anyone who has endeavored to print a book knows that laying out your file is an art form.
The Lulu blog is all about helping you demystify the art of book design and formatting! We regularly discuss formatting elements and how to design a page to fit printer specifications.
Even still, you could get your file designed beautifully, sized perfectly, and looking amazing on your screen, but you still have issues printing. For an author, getting a proof that looks wrong is one of the most frustrating things. I’ve been there, I know.
Flattening a PDF For Printing
As you complete your book’s interior file, you need to think about how your file will convert to PDF. If you aren’t aware, PDF is the universally accepted file for printing documents. No matter what file types a publisher offers to accept, always provide a PDF (some exceptions for ebooks).
I’ve suggested this to authors before and had many responses tossed back at me. Most are ‘why can’t I just send my Word file’ or ‘I’m not a graphic designer.’ Well, if you’re not a graphic designer, that’s all the more reason you need to know how to best provide files. And if you’re working from MS Word, you really need to know about PDFs.
A PDF is a final product, meaning what you see is exactly what you get. PDFs offer finality and consistency in file presentation that no other format can rival. Most notably, DOC and DOCX files are anything but consistent, as the file will apply styles and direct formatting based on the source and the version of Word used to view the file.
PDFs do not suffer inconsistencies based on viewer, file version, or software. Their purpose is to provide a single, consistent file type for printing.
What Are PDF Layers?
When you create a document using Microsoft Word, InDesign, or similar programs, you use layers. Each element added to the page, such as text, images, page numbering, or header styles, is on its own layer.
Here’s an example looking at our Next Level Marketing Infographic. Created in Adobe Illustrator, I’ve opened the PDF using Affinity Publisher.
The menu on the right shows layers, with three primary layers and multiple content layers, to complete the infographic. Every piece of text and every image is a distinct layer. I can select individual elements and move them or edit them.
If I select all the layers and rasterize them, it compresses the layers into a single layer!
Note that using Rasterize to flatten layers isn’t suitable for all projects. I used it because I can select all the layers and rasterize them quickly enough to make a GIF. I don’t suggest going this way to flatten your file unless you’re comfortable rasterizing a file.
Creating Print-Ready PDF Files With Flattened Layers
As you can see in the gif above, after flattening my file, the entire content is a single element. You can likely imagine why this is helpful for printers creating your book. With no layers, we can print the contents with no manipulation or alteration.
Flattening any layers in your file may not be obvious. It took me a long time to understand how important it can be.
Just remember that Lulu (and any other book printer) will need to flatten your file before we can finish printing. If you do that step before submitting the file, you’ve removed one potential snag! And you’ve seen your file in its printer-perfect form, so you know it will look good once the book is printed and bound.
I’ve tried multiple ways to “flatten” my pdf, but I still get the transparent elements error message. I don’t know what else to do to get it to work, and I want to make sure my book turns out the way it looks on my pdf, but I’m worried what will happen.
Hey Raphaelle,
First off, I feel your pain. I’ve struggled multiple times with properly formatting print files myself, I’ve been working with self-publishing for 10+ years! It can be frustrating and cumbersome.
I suggest you start with this Adobe article about flattening PDFs. They will strongly push you to their Acrobat Pro product, but they also include their free compression option. If you haven’t used Acrobat Pro, you might be able to do a free trial just to flatten your one PDF for free (I’ve done this in the past).
If you’re still seeing errors, you should reach out to our support team to see if they have any additional advice.
This does not actually answer the simple question: If you have a PDF is it not already flattened? Does that make the entire conversation moot?
Hi Barbara,
The short answer is no; PDFs are not already or automatically flattened. Having a PDF with selectable text is often important for proofing a final manuscript before making it print ready. And the variety of ways to create a PDF (from InDesign to Word to Google Docs and so many more) make it critical to understand what it means to flatten the file and to know when a file has been flattened.
I would not call this a ‘moot conversation’ at all. It is one of the fundamental formatting concerns for anyone self-publishing without a background in graphic design or page layout.
Okay. So it still doesn’t answer my question. Am I expected to perform some sort of exercise to do this before I send a PDF? I have someone putting it in InDesign so can I assume whatever this is has been done?
If you’ve hired someone to design the file in InDesign, they should know how to export a flattened PDF for you. Lulu will flatten the file when we process and check it for printing, but I always recommend doing this yourself (particularly if you have a lot of images/charts in your file) so you can see what the file output will look like. Our process for flattening is automated and does not include any review or checks to ensure the right layers are on top or that the layers have flattened correctly.
Of course, you should always use the preview tool in the Design step and order a proof to be sure everything looks good too. File design is an art and sometimes requires some trial to get it just right.
Here’s our guide to PDF creation settings- https://help.lulu.com/en/support/solutions/articles/64000255519 – be sure your designer is exporting using Lulu’s Job Options (included in the linked article) to get the file properly flattened and prepared for printing.
Could you, please, tell me why I cannot send pdf text files to Lulu made from docx Word files? Only if I convert my docx files to doc files and then convert them to pdf files are acceptable by Lulu. Initially, it took me a month to discover why my pdf files coming from docx files could not be accepted by Lulu. Only after saving my docx files as doc files and then into pdf files Lulu accepted them. The reason was on me? If so, please, tell me what to do in order Lulu to accept my pdf files coming from docx files. Thank you.
Monk Damaskinos
Hi Monk,
Sorry to learn you’ve had some issues with creating a PDF we can accept.
Because converting from DOCX to DOC to a PDF did work, I suspect the issue may be based in your version of Word or the settings used to export the file to PDF. Unfortunately, trouble shooting an issue like that is best suited for our Support Team.
My best suggestions before reaching out to Support would be to ensure your version of Word is fully up to date and that you are following the procedure for that version (it does vary depending on the edition of Word you use) to export to a print-ready PDF. If you have access to Abode Distiller (part of the Acrobat Pro package from Adobe), you could try distilling your PDF as well, using our presets. The help article I linked above includes our presets for Adobe Distiller, if you choose to go that route.
As a newspaper publisher, I have received ads in the PDF format and I learned early on – the hard way! – that what the advertiser sends me is not always what I received.
I learned to take a screen-shot of what I received to send back for approval. That catches missing elements and font substitutions.
A simple way to rasterize a file – I do it with all my Lulu book covers – is to first save the design as a PDF. I then convert it to a JPG, then back to PDF and all the layers are now one. I use a MAC, if that matters.