Print-ready PDF (PDF/X)
A PDF exported under a locked-down standard (PDF/X) that bakes in fonts, color, and bleed so the press sees what you saw.
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What it is
PDF/X is a stripped-down subset of PDF built so the file cannot surprise the press. It bans the risky parts and demands the boring ones: fonts embedded, color spaces declared, an output intent (ICC profile) named, bleed and trim boxes defined, no stray comments or form fields. Export to PDF/X and the file describes itself completely instead of relying on the printer's machine having your assets.
Two flavors cover most jobs. PDF/X-1a is the conservative one: everything flattened, CMYK and spot only, no live transparency, accepted everywhere. PDF/X-4 keeps live transparency and layers, which modern RIPs prefer and which avoids flattening artifacts. Ask the printer which standard and which output intent they want, then save it as a preset and stop thinking about it.
Gotcha: exporting 'smallest file size' or a web-optimized PDF quietly downsamples images toward 72 PPI and converts color to RGB, which is how good artwork prints soft and muddy. And X-1a flattening can turn a drop shadow into a visible pale box over a spot color. The standard only enforces packaging: a PDF/X file can still be the wrong size with the wrong phone number on it.
Ask AI for it
Export this document as a print-ready PDF/X file: use the PDF/X-4:2010 standard with the printer's output intent profile (for example US Web Coated SWOP v2), embed all fonts, keep images at full resolution with no downsampling and lossless or maximum-quality compression, include 3mm bleed on all sides, and define the trim and bleed boxes. Add crop, registration, or color-bar marks only if the printer's specification asks for them, at the offset they specify, sitting outside the bleed area. Convert stray RGB to CMYK unless their PDF/X-4 workflow accepts tagged RGB, keep only the agreed spot colors, and strip comments, form fields, and hidden layers.