Editor › Features › Print PDF Export with ICC OutputIntent
Can PhotoAIA export a print-ready PDF?
It exports a single-page print PDF with bleed, crop and registration marks, correct TrimBox and BleedBox, and an ICC profile embedded as a GTS_PDFX OutputIntent. The artwork is flattened, and the file is deliberately not labelled PDF/X-4.
What is written
- MediaBox, BleedBox and TrimBox, correctly nested.
- GTS_PDFX OutputIntent with the embedded destination profile and the real output condition.
- XMP metadata carrying the pdfxid conformance keys, and an explicit /Trapped value.
- Optional crop and registration marks, placed outside the trim edge.
- DeviceCMYK or ICCBased colour for the print raster path.
Why it is not called PDF/X-4
A structural self-check covering sixteen mandatory requirements passes every item it can decide. That is not the same as certification. Authoritative PDF/X validation requires Acrobat Preflight or callas pdfToolbox; veraPDF, the usual open-source validator, implements PDF/A and PDF/UA and has no PDF/X profile at all.
Rather than claim a standard nothing has verified, PhotoAIA calls this an ICC-tagged print PDF and states what it does and does not satisfy.
Current limitations
- Artwork is flattened to a raster image — text is not live and vectors are not preserved as vectors.
- No fonts are embedded, because there are no text objects to embed for.
- PDF files cannot be opened, only written.
Questions
- Is PhotoAIA’s PDF export PDF/X-4 compliant?
- It is not labelled PDF/X-4. It writes PDF/X-4 structure and passes a sixteen-requirement self-check, but no PDF/X conformance validator has certified it, so the claim is not made.
- Does the PDF keep my text editable?
- No. The page is flattened to a raster image, so text is rendered into pixels.