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Mono books workflow

These are examples of mono books with their respective recommended workflow:

1 – Titles with Black text only.
2 – Titles with Black text and Black illustrations.
3 – Titles with Black text and Colour inserts.
4 – Conversion of existing CMYK titles into Black only printing.
5 – Print on demand CMYK to Black (Amazon) 


1 – Titles with Black text only

  • The colour profile used should be the DK’s standard Uncoated profile.
  • Files should be set up as one document with one UK Text layer (no need for a CMYK layer).
  • For flowing text, especially if it is justified, it may be that Adobe Paragraph Composer will work better than Adobe Single-line Composer. This should be tested at the time of making the style sheet.
  • Run the Penguin Mono from typesetter SourceReport (please note that this will not flag up if Preferences are not set up correctly). (A DK Mono SourceReport is under discussion).
  • Use Exporter to create PDFs using the PRH_PDF_Mono preset.
  • Preflight the text PDFs using the DK Mono profile.

2 – Titles with Black text and Black illustrations

  • The colour profile used should be the DK’s standard Uncoated profile.
  • Files should be set up as one document with one UK Text layer (no need for a CMYK layer as if co-eds take the title, they will be sent the black illustrations).
  • For flowing text, especially if it is justified, it may be that Adobe Paragraph Composer will work better than Adobe Single-line Composer. This should be tested at the time of making the style sheet.
  • If a book contains black vectors and no bleeds, it can be 100% black.
  • If a book contains photography, bleeds, gradients or tints, there is a maximum ink of 80% black for all images and large areas. This link on DK Handbook will explain how to set up mono images.
  • Check if any special printer requirements are needed. (Clays for example will require one single PDF for the whole book).
  • Run the DK Frontlist Uncoated SourceReport. (A DK Mono SourceReport is under discussion).
  • Use Exporter to create PDFs using the PRH_PDF_Mono preset. 
  • Preflight the PDFs using the DK Mono profile if it is not printed at Clays
  • If it is printed at Clays, use the DK Mono Clays 80% preflight. 

3 – Titles with Black text and Colour inserts (set up as separate documents)

Black text part (which may contain black illustrations)

  • The colour profile used should be the DK’s standard Uncoated profile.
  • Files should be set up with one UK Text layer (no need for a CMYK layer as if co-eds take the title, they will be sent the black illustrations if there are any).
  • For flowing text, especially if it is justified, it may be that Adobe Paragraph Composer will work better than Adobe Single-line Composer. This should be tested at the time of making the style sheet.
  • If a book contains black illustrations with vectors and no bleeds, it can be 100% black.
  • If a book contains photography, bleeds, gradients or tints, there is a maximum ink of 80% black for all images and large areas. This link on DK Handbook will explain how to set up mono images.
  • Check if any special printer requirements are needed. (Clays for example will require one single PDF for the whole book).
  • Run the Penguin Mono from typesetter SourceReport (please note that this will not flag up if Preferences are not set up correctly). (A DK Mono SourceReport is under discussion).
  • Use Exporter to create PDFs using the PRH_PDF_Mono preset. 
  • Preflight the text PDFs using the DK Mono profile.

     Colour inserts

  • The colour profile used should be the DK’s standard Coated or Uncoated profile
  • Files should be set up with the standard two layers if there is text in the inserts (UK & CMYK).
  • For flowing text, especially if it is justified, it may be that Adobe Paragraph Composer will work better than Adobe Single-line Composer. This should be tested at the time of making the style sheet.
  • Run the DK Coated Frontlist SourceReport. 
  • Use Exporter to create PDFs, using the PRH_PDF_CMYK_Coated39 preset for the CMYK layer, and PRH_PDF_ Translation preset for the text layer.
  • Preflight the PDFs using the CMYK from InDesign (Coated 39) profile for the CMYK PDFs and the PRH_PDF_Mono profile for the text PDFs.

4 – Conversion of existing CMYK titles into Black only printing.

  • The set-up of the original InDesign files does not need to change (i.e. layers remain the same). 
  • If a format change is needed and it is not in pro, the creative team will have to do it. If the format change is in pro, the printer should be able to handle it.
  • If a book contains black vectors and no bleeds, it can be 100% black.
  • If a book contains CMYK photography, bleeds, gradients or tints, there is a maximum ink of 80% black for all images and large areas.
    Images will need to be converted in Photoshop. This link on DK Handbook will explain how to set up mono images. InDesign or Illustrator elements should be converted in their respective programs.
  • Check if any special printer requirements are needed. (Clays for example will require one single PDF for the whole book).
  • Use Exporter to create PDFs using the PRH_PDF_Mono preset.
  • Preflight the text PDFs using the DK Mono profile.
  • Creative team to check PDFs to ensure no changes need to be made.

5 – Print on demand CMYK to Black (Amazon) 

  • Using the original CMYK and UK/US PDFs, run the Combo script from the Fuse menu, selecting the option Go (POD – with bleeds). (This tool will automatically create InDesign files for each spread, containing the CMYK and the Text PDFs).
  • Consider the availability of fonts if text PDFs are not available.
  • Create greyscale PDFs from these new InDesign files, using Exporter and the PRH_Greyscale_Page_Image preset. 
  • Combine these PDFs into one, in Acrobat.
  • Preflight the combined PDF using the DK Mono setting.
  • Creative team to check PDFs to ensure no changes need to be made.