Print & production
Output profiles & ICC
When you export a Print (CMYK) PDF, two small controls decide what "CMYK" actually means in your file: the Output profile and the PDF/X standard. Get them right and your on-screen soft-proof, your printer's proof and the final sheet all describe the same colors.
What an output profile does
The Output profile is the ICC destination profile the in-browser RIP converts your colors into on the way out. An ICC profile is a precise definition of a CMYK space — how a specific combination of inks, paper and press renders every color. "CMYK" on newsprint is not the same "CMYK" as on a coated sheetfed job, and the profile is what pins that down.
This is also the profile that drives the soft-proof you see while you work in CMYK (print) mode. Choosing the profile your printer specifies is how you make the preview on your monitor and the ink on their press line up, instead of guessing.
The built-in profiles
The Output profile dropdown (in the Export dialog's Print (CMYK) options) offers four choices:
| Profile | Best for |
|---|---|
| Generic CMYK | A safe, conservative default when you don't know the press. |
| US Web Coated (SWOP) v2 | North American web offset — magazines, catalogs. |
| Coated FOGRA39 | European coated stock, the ISO 12647-2 standard. |
| GRACoL 2006 Coated | North American sheetfed commercial print on coated paper. |
Each one describes a different real-world printing condition. The difference shows up most in saturated colors and in how neutral your grays and blacks stay.
Which one to choose
The rule is simple: use whatever profile your print provider names. Print shops know their own presses and will tell you the condition they run — match it exactly.
If you genuinely don't know, fall back on region:
- Generic CMYK — the cautious universal choice.
- US Web Coated (SWOP) v2 — the common default in North America.
- Coated FOGRA39 — the common default in Europe.
Picking the "wrong" regional profile rarely ruins a job, but matching the printer's profile is what lets you trust your proof.
The PDF/X standard
The PDF/X standard control offers a single option: PDF/X-4. That's deliberate.
PDF/X-4 is the modern print-exchange standard. It supports live transparency (drop shadows, blends and gradients pass through without being flattened) and carries an embedded output intent. It's the format most commercial printers ask for today.
You won't find PDF/X-1a here on purpose. PDF/X-1a forbids transparency and requires the file to be flattened first — and the RIP that builds your PDF keeps transparency live rather than flattening it, so offering X-1a would be misleading.
The output intent
When you export, the profile you picked is embedded in the file as the PDF/X output intent — a tag that records exactly which CMYK space the document targets. It travels with the file, so any downstream RIP knows the color destination without you sending a separate note.
The output intent carries a human-readable condition name so people and software can read it at a glance:
| Profile | Output-intent condition |
|---|---|
| Generic CMYK | Generic CMYK |
| US Web Coated (SWOP) v2 | U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 |
| Coated FOGRA39 | Coated FOGRA39 (ISO 12647-2:2004) |
| GRACoL 2006 Coated | GRACoL 2006 Coated1 (ISO 12647-2:2004) |
Tip: an embedded output intent is one of the things that makes a file genuinely "print-ready" — it removes the ambiguity about which CMYK you meant.
Operator-installed profiles
A note for administrators and print operators: not every ICC profile ships inside Design Editor. Press profiles like SWOP, FOGRA39 and GRACoL are subject to licensing, so only Generic CMYK is guaranteed out of the box.
To enable the others, drop the corresponding .icc files into the server's print ICC path.
Once the file is present, the app picks it up automatically and uses it for both the
soft-proof and the exported output intent — no code change needed.
If a profile's .icc file is missing, the export doesn't fail. It falls back to a plain
DeviceCMYK PDF (no embedded output intent) so you still get a usable file. That's the same
graceful degradation to expect whenever a profile isn't installed — worth checking if an
export comes out without the intent you selected.
Verifying the profile
After export, confirm the intent actually landed. In Acrobat Pro, open Output Preview (or the document's output-intent panel) and read the profile name — it should match the condition name from the table above. Any preflight-capable RIP or a tool like Ghostscript's metadata view will show the same thing.
If the file reports DeviceCMYK with no intent, the chosen profile wasn't installed on the server (see above) — reselect and re-export once it's in place.
Where to go next
This control lives inside the wider print flow. See Exporting a print-ready PDF for the full Export dialog, and Spot colors & print separations for how named inks ride alongside your process colors. For the big picture, read what "print-ready" really means.