Printing & Export

General checklist

Before uploading your PDF, verify these things:

• Trigger a release build — only the release PDF has full 300 DPI. Do NOT upload the preview PDF to a print service; it will look blurry.
  • GUI: click Release in the toolbar (or press Ctrl+Shift+B)
  • CLI: fotobuch build release
• Check the output for DPI warnings (photos that are too small for their slot will be listed)
• Open the final PDF ({name}_final.pdf) and spot-check a few pages

Saal Digital

fotobuch generates PDFs that meet Saal Digital’s technical requirements out of the box:

• Bleed: 3 mm on all sides (configurable via config.book.bleed_mm in the YAML)
• PDF boxes: MediaBox, TrimBox, and BleedBox are set correctly — matching what InDesign would produce
• Resolution: 300 DPI for the release build (configurable via config.book.dpi)

I tested the output with Saal Digital’s online preview tool and it passed without any issues. You can upload the PDF directly to their website for printing. The only issue I had sometimes was that I did not know their spine widths exactly so I had to tweak the config.book.spine_mm setting a few times to get the preview to look right. If you know your spine width in advance, set it in the config before building and the preview should be correct on the first try. I printed 7 photo books using fotobuch and I am quite happy with the results.

Other print services

Most print-on-demand services accept standard PDF with bleed. Adjust config.book.bleed_mm if your provider requires a different bleed size. The default 3 mm works for the majority of European providers.