If you are a graphic artist, you may have been working with PDF documents, and you are probably wondering why the PDF document is used in the graphic industry? To understand why this happens, it is necessary to understand its advantages.
In this article
Part 1. Why Does Graphic Artist Utilize PDF
Graphic artists work primarily with raster graphics editors to create and edit very high-quality images. However, it is expected that these images are not the final product. These images are often intended to illustrate books, manuals, scientific papers, web design mockups, etc. Next, I will tell you why the PDF format is the best option for a graphic artist for this type of project.
Maintain color fidelity
Color rendering might seem basic, but graphic artists realize that this is not so simple. There are different color scales, and each one of them seeks to display color in other circumstances faithfully. For example, Kodak developed the ProPhoto RGB color space to display the colors of high-quality photographs, but printers mainly use three color spaces, Gray, CMYK, and Adobe RGB, while for screens, there are the HSB, LAB, RGB, and sRGB color spaces. The PDF format allows you to specify the color space that the document requires and convert them to another color space if necessary to ensure that your colors are faithfully displayed regardless of whether they are printed or viewed from a screen.
Maintain fonts
If you have ever worked with documents with custom text fonts, you have surely noticed that sometimes, when opening these documents from other programs, the fonts you had chosen changed. This is because text fonts are essentially files stored in a resource folder of the software you use, so it is natural that when trying to open this document with another program, it does not have the same resources as the previous one. On the other hand, the PDF format, in conjunction with its visualizer, can integrate and display practically any text font.
PDF pages can be any size.
One of the main problems when working with text documents is modifying the dimensions of the paper since they are not easily adapted. In addition, programs such as Microsoft Word do not allow creating documents with a size greater than 55cm in height or width, so it is cumbersome and impractical to work with different dimensions. On the other hand, using the PDF format, it is possible to work with pages of practically any size.
Page crop
Web pages are often designed to be responsive, so images must be resized to fit the aspect ratio of a mobile device. However, this is not as simple as resizing the document or images. The graphic artist must choose what should be displayed on the screen. The PDF format allows you to crop documents, which facilitates many tasks, including implementing passwords, assigning permissions, and teamwork. In this way, it is possible to separate, edit, or replace certain parts of a document separately.
Compression
Graphic artists work with images with very high resolution and depth of color because they can rescale them if necessary without degrading the quality of the image in the process. However, even if the images are resized, a document storing multiple images of this type may become very heavy and impractical. Fortunately, when using the PDF format, you have advanced compression methods to weigh as little as possible without losing quality at all.
Make files searchable
A graphic artist usually works with many files simultaneously as he uses them as resources to create new files. It is not uncommon for them to work with complex documents that have been constructed from various edited images and text documents. Using the PDF format, it is possible to organize all those documents in one place.
Part 2. How to Share Graphic PDF Files Safely?
Now you know some of the advantages that only the PDF format can offer. In addition, there are multiple free viewers with which you can work with these types of documents, but you may have doubts about how to share PDF documents safely. It is advisable to use specialized PDF document viewers such as PDFelement as they offer some advantages that other PDF file managers do not. For instance.
Security
As a graphic artist, one of your primary concerns may be to share your files without anyone being able to violate your copyright. You are probably already taking preventive measures such as placing watermarks or signatures. Still, there are some things you should know about PDF file security.
Password protection
PDFelement will allow you to assign passwords, ensuring that no one who is not authorized will be able to see the content of your files.
All you have to do is open your document with PDFelement, click on the "Protect" section and check the "Open Password" box. If you wish, you can check the "Permission Password" box to establish specific permissions, and when finished, select an encryption level and click "Save."
Electronic signature
You can create electronic signatures to reproduce them as many times as necessary and ensure that all your creations have an identical signature.
Step 1. Add a new signature
From PDFelement, go to the "Convert" section, click on the ballpoint pen icon to the right of the bar and select the "+ Create" option. There you will find a canvas where you can draw your signature, write with your keyboard or even upload a file that contains a signature.
Step 2. Place the signature
Once you have created the signature, all you have to do is select the place where you want to place it in the document. If you need to place the signature in more than one place, you can press the ballpoint pen button again and select the signature you already created.
Digital signature
PDFelement allows you to add protected digital signatures. In this way, you can add your contact information to all the documents of your authorship and make sure that no one other than you can remove the signature.
Step 1. Choose a location
To add a digital signature, you must go to the "Protect" section, click on the "Sign a document" option and select a location where you want to place the digital signature.
Step 2. Create a Digital Signature
Before continuing, you will need to create a digital signature. You will find the " New ID " button among the tool's buttons to add digital signatures. There you should see the "New ID" button. Click on it and follow the instructions to create yours.
Step 3. Select a Digital Signature
If you already have a digital signature, select it, enter the corresponding password, and choose an appearance style. When finished, click on "Sign."
Share
Just as PDFelement offers security tools, it also helps you share and manage your documents easily. Here's how.
Commenting tools
This software has tools that allow you to add comments, notes, highlight text, add shapes, underline text, add Bookmarks, modify the text, draw, etc. All this and more with just a couple of clicks.
You can access these features from the "Comment" section of PDFelement and use the cursor to indicate where you want to work with the tool.
Manage comments
PDFelement has a side panel that will help you manage all the changes and points of interest in your documents.
To access this panel, all you have to do is select a category that serves as a filter (Thumbnails, Bookmarks, Attachments, and Layers) and display the panel using the tab next to it. There you can find a list with clickable elements to go directly to the comment, thumbnail, bookmark, attachment, or Layer you want.
Share review
If you work as a team and need to share only some reviews, PDFelement has a tool to capture specific parts of the document. This feature is handy when there are only one or two corrections, and therefore it is not wise to send the entire document.
To find this tool go to the Tool section and click on "Capture." Once this is done, your screen will darken slightly and will show you a selection box with which you can capture the specific reviews you want to share.
Integrate with popular cloud storage devices
There are many methods for sharing PDF files, but cloud storage is possibly the most popular. Using PDFelement, file sharing is much easier than ever.
All you have to do is click on the "File" button, display the "Share" menu and choose the cloud storage service that you like the most (Google Drive, Dropbox, Wondershare Cloud, OneDrive, Evernote, and Box).
Closing Words
If you are a graphic artist, you should use PDF files. This format is a standard today because it offers a vast variety of advantages concerning compatibility, quality, size, manageability, and security. Also, as you may have noticed, there are programs like PDFelement that make working with these types of documents much easier.
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