Why are my images in my brochure blurry after EXPORTED as PDF?? Was clear before but now blurry on print and Indesign?

Question

I was given a previous Indesign brochure to edit. I edited the fields, saved and then exported as PDF. Once I exported, my Indesign documents images all turned blurry. Why did this happen and how can I fix it? Im almost positive when I went to print and or re-open the brochure that it prompted me saying i was "MISSING LINKS" and I chose to ignore. IS that causing the problem? And if so, how do I fix? Im on a time limit for work.

Please help!

Answer 1

When you were given the InDesign file for editing it should have been saved in a folder with the linked images and fonts. Click on the links palette to find out where InDesign is trying to get the images from. If the images are not there my best advice would be to speak to person who asked you to edit the file.

When you have completed the brochure, you should use InDesign's package facility to store the file and all linked elements. It also shows any potential conflicts for printing (RGB files, font warnings etc.) Then create your pdf for export and print.

Answer 2

Missing links warning means that your document is terminally broken for printing. You should never, ever, send anything to print with this warning. What you need to do is relink the originals, that is if you still have them around.

What has happened is that the original files are missing. InDesign thus only has thumbnails for those images. Since InDesign only has thumbnails, which are low resolution previews, it is emitting those to your PDF. Low resolution in your case means blurry.

This is a fairly typical problem for beginners who do not understand that linked files are not embedded in the indd file. Sometimes you see this in advertisements this causes very angry customers.

Answer 3

This question is years old but has a lot of views, so I thought I'd share what I learned. The default settings are for a medium resolution. When I used 300 dpi images and exported the file to for best quality/maximum resolution, it looked much better. If I still was not satisfied, I just exchanged the troublesome images in the pdf file with the original ones.