Definition
Press-ready PDF
A press-ready PDF is a print file already in a commercial printer's terms: CMYK colour, black text on the black plate only, fonts embedded, trim and bleed declared, and usually crop marks, so it can be plated without fixes.
Print-ready and press-ready are often used as one term but differ in who does the last conversion. A print-on-demand service takes a print-ready PDF — exact trim, fonts embedded, often in RGB — and converts it for its own presses. An offset or local printer expects the conversion done: colours in CMYK, text and greys on the K plate rather than a four-ink 'rich black' that blurs, a PDF/X output intent, TrimBox and BleedBox set, and crop marks outside the bleed if they cut by them. Ceeryo produces both from one Word manuscript: the PDF for KDP, and a press-ready PDF with or without marks.
Related tools & guides
The press-ready file, made for you
Upload your Word manuscript: Ceeryo typesets it and gives you a CMYK PDF with black on the K plate, a PDF/X output intent, crop marks and 3 mm bleed — and the plain PDF for KDP from the same upload.