When designing and exporting your files, think about how it can be double purpose. How can it work for both printing and electronic publication. Either way, you are likely to be using PDF format. Save yourself some time and hassle by working with both formats within the same document because this is easier than making two documents.
Things to consider for printing
It might be easy to overlook the need for print quality. Afterall, long are the days of printing thousands of copies of something for distribution. However, printing is not gone yet. When you send out anything via email or to download from your website make sure it is print quality for those customers who do print. It is a shame to have the files not turn out correctly for those users. The main thing to consider is really the print quality of the photos/images. Make sure they are the highest quality possible. While you don’t have to have 600dpi images for professional images, make sure they are above 150dpi at a minimum. This means no screen based 72dpi images, they will not print well.
Another thing to consider is any forms or writing spaces. Make sure you print a copy out and get your pen to test that you have left enough from for people to write in. The size of things on the screen and the size on paper can be widely different.
If the images go off the edge of the page, build in bleed and export your PDF with trim marks.
Things to consider for electronic publication
Clickable everything. Any weblinks should be clickable so nobody has to copy/paste or type them out. You can even set up a series of social media icons that click through to the correct sites. Users know what the icons mean and this looks really clean in your layout.
A table of contents should be clickable so that people can go straight to whichever page they want. This applies also for any indexes or cross references throughout your document too.
Depending on your document, you might also want to consider tabbed browsing if the document is long with many sections.
Any form fields should be fillable so users can type in the form and print it out. There is also an option to set up buttons for clearing and submitting the form or adding in a signature. These elements will require a second document since they don’t make sense and can’t be used when printed.
Make your document dual purpose
I personally have a preset in InDesign that exports PDFs that are 150dpi and all interactive elements are included. This is a good balance for both those using the documents on the computer and those who print them out. Perfect for printing and electronic publication.
