{"id":3458,"date":"2017-12-29T18:35:28","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T18:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/?p=3458"},"modified":"2017-12-29T18:50:58","modified_gmt":"2017-12-29T18:50:58","slug":"print-versions-make-your-line-art-pngs-non-transparent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2017\/12\/29\/print-versions-make-your-line-art-pngs-non-transparent\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-published paperbacks: make your line art PNGs non-transparent!"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Writing up my self-publishing process \u2014 I won’t have had <\/em>new problems, but nobody will have had my <\/em>precise problems. I realised I should Just Write, then index it all later. So let’s start deep in the details.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

To publish a paperback book through Amazon’s CreateSpace<\/a> or Kindle Direct Publishing<\/a> services, you can submit either a Microsoft Word document\u00a0\u2014 which the system will attempt to auto-format in some sensible manner\u00a0\u2014 or a print-ready PDF of the interior.<\/p>\n

(I used CreateSpace. KDP’s print service<\/a> is very beta … I tried to use it, but strongly<\/em> disrecommend it \u2014 it’s not good yet, and doesn’t do author proof copies.)<\/p>\n

A book is not just a slab of text, but a designed object\u00a0\u2014 you need to make it look nice. If you want something that looks professional, you’re going to do a PDF, with everything laid out just so.<\/p>\n

CreateSpace and Kindle have a previewer, to show how your file will be rendered by their systems. So I prepared a nice print layout in LibreOffice, made a PDF with “Export as PDF” \u2014 then concatenated three PDFs with pdfjam<\/a>, ‘cos I was being fussy and exacting \u2014 then uploaded it to CreateSpace, previewed it, and … well:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here’s how the tulip looked in the original PDF (pages 146\u2013147<\/a>) and in Kindle’s previewer:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This was somewhat disconcerting. Fortunately, the CreateSpace user forums are very helpful, with a post<\/a> from someone with similar apparent problems.<\/p>\n

The root cause: transparency in PNG images<\/a>.<\/p>\n

PNGs are lossless \u2014 JPEGs are fine for photos, but you risk getting JPEG artifacts if you use them for line art. However, PNGs allow transparency.<\/p>\n

When you include images in your LibreOffice document, LO doesn’t mess with them\u00a0\u2014 it tries to include them as-is, unaltered. The PNGs had transparent bits \u2014 and the CreateSpace previewer didn’t handle it well.<\/p>\n

The images would almost certainly have printed cleanly! But problems should always be fixed as early in the production chain as possible \u2014 and you can’t be sure some other system won’t choke on it. The rule is: get the source file right<\/strong>. So:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. If you have black-and-white line art, make your PNGs 1 bit per pixel with no transparency, before<\/em> you include them in your document.<\/li>\n
  2. Make them 300dpi if you can\u00a0\u2014 more is a waste, and may get dithered or screened.<\/li>\n
  3. When you “Export as PDF” from LibreOffice, export as “PDF\/A”<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    CreateSpace’s checker still found some transparency in the PDF, but the print version came out fine.<\/p>\n

    \"Become<\/a>

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    Adventures in self-publishing \u2014 the little details that go into a professional-quality final product. Following the rule of “just write,” let’s start deep in the details …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[202,321,322,51],"class_list":["post-3458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-createspace","tag-kindle","tag-libreoffice","tag-self-publishing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3458"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3485,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3458\/revisions\/3485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}