I am new to LibreOffice and I have created a greeting card in Draw, but in order for my greeting card to go to the printers, they require commercial printer quality PDF file. How do I save this Draw file as such? I looked at the PDF options but I don’t see commercial press option. Can anyone help me?
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They surely can print the pdf you give them. (If they refuse, go to a different shop.)
Try a print and judge yourself whether or not it meets your needs.
Yes they probably could, but I want the best print possible. Wouldn’t you for a client? If an ordinary PDF doesn’t give a quality print, I could lose my client. I don’t want that. This is why I want commercial quality print, not the kind of print you would do at home, but thank you for the suggestion. 
I simply want “good” or “sufficient” or “expected” quality. Terms like “commercial quality” or “professional service” are only advertising to me. If the quality of a print is complying with your customer’s request should the customer decide based on a sample and knowing the price for enhancement. A print shop requesting “commercial quality” for something his customer (that’s you) should provide is just faking, imo. One actually working professional woud take your actual source and make the needed pdf from it on their own. If they can clearly show that an odf file can’t be used for this, it’s a different thing.
I wouldn’t hire a bricklayer expecting me to prepare the mortar for his work “in professional quality”.
I’m neither your boss nor your customer, nor a print shop operator, however. Mainly I’m not an expert in the field.
Menu/File/Export as/Export as PDF ?
I know that much, but thank you. I was referring to the PDF Options dialog box. I do know most printing companies prefer the dpi to be a minimum of 300, but I see so options for Commercial Press like Publisher used to give this option for saving as PDF file format. If LibreOffice does not have this option, then I have no other choice but to purchase Microsoft 365 again.
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Yes, and no one will be angry with you if you buy the software that fulfills your wishes.
Good luck.
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If your artwork is already 300 dpi then untick the reduce resolution box. Don’t rely on pdf export to upscale your images.
If you have vector images, don’t convert to jpg and they will remain vector.
There is no support for color space in LibreOffice, maybe consider using Scribus which is an open source desktop publishing program.
[Edit] it seems Publisher no longer supports CMYK space since 2013, see Microsoft Answers CMYK in Publisher 2016
If you have added CMYK images and don’t convert the images on export, then that probably works to keep them CMYK.
I don’t know anything about vector images. I am just a fine artist that managed to increased my photos of my painting to 600 dpi in GIMP then Exported that as a png to create to greeting card in Draw because most printing companies require a file where you already created a card and one company I have dealt with said they required 300dpi, so I was just going with that as a guideline. What you speak of about CMYK went right over my head, sorry. I understand RGB. I am not a Graphic Designer. I am just trying to create a card for my client to get it to the printers for next year.
So my first paragraph applies but you will have a larger file size (4 x larger) than required due to the 600 dpi.
Export to pdf in LibreOffice is higher quality than Microsoft office offers as default. It also has more options to fine tune.
If you want the photo to go all the way to the edge you will need bleed which is where the image extends beyond the area but still printed before being cropped to size. Draw cannot apply bleed but there is an extension that does a simulation of bleed.
I appreciate your comments, but your attempt is confusing me more than helping me. What I need is a step by step beyond Export As. Which options do I choose in the PDF Options? This was my main question from the very beginning.
Ok I’ll assume that you have kept the photo with a printing margin inside the page as shown in image below.
From the sound of it just exporting it as pdf will be fine. I would be inclined to set it as below and see if printers are happy. The biggest difference will be file size.
- You can untick JPEG compression Quality but 90% quality will be very good anyway, especially if original was a jpg.
- You can untick reduce resolution, or set it to reduce resolution to 300 dpi but don’t set it lower
- If you want the photo unchanged then untick the two above and set Lossless compression (png not jpg in this case)
LibreOffice embeds fonts by default but not all fonts can be embedded because of the font license. Open the pdf in Adobe Reader and check that all the fonts that you used are listed in File > Properties > Fonts. If you are missing a font then it would be easiest to find a substitute font (look on Google Fonts) unless your printer has the licensed font available.
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I guess the hints given above to export with 300 dpi should solve YOUR problem.
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If you at some time really need “professional” prints look out for Scribus. It is open source, free of charge and has pdf/x support as well as color-management (wich is mandatory, if you really want the “best possible” output).
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IMHO “professional” service, without telling you the precise options you have like pdf/x1 or pdf/x3 and color-model xxx for embedded pictures is not professional at all…
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