Momento Pro Adobe InDesign Plugin

Our InDesign plugin simplifies the process of designing and exporting a project to a press-ready PDF file.

The plugin performs two main tasks:

• the creation of a blank InDesign document according to our specifications, including page and cover dimensions, bleed, safe area guides, colour settings and spine dimensions for covers
• the export of a completed project to a print-ready PDF according to Momento Pro's requirements

Once a new document has been started, do not adjust the InDesign document size or settings.  If you wish to make a custom sized book, please contact Momento for advice. 

Note: Using the Momento Pro InDesign plugin requires knowledge of InDesign. Our customer service team can assist with the use of our plugin, but can't assist with the use of InDesign itself.


Please read these instructions carefully before starting your project. We recommend you print this page and read our Colour Management page.

 

Supported Products

Overview

1. Download and install the plugin
2. Preparation
3. Design your pages
4. Design a cover (optional)
5. Export your pages and cover to PDF
6. Check your PDFs (make changes and re-export if necessary)
7. Upload your PDFs and order

Download and Install

Preparation

Product and stock limitations

• You should familiarise yourself with product details before commencing a new project. See the product pages for hardcover books, perfect bound softcover books, saddle-stitched booklets and flush mount albums

Image file formats:

• For best image results, use TIFF (LZW or ZIP). The next best format is JPEG at 100% quality
• Do not link Photoshop files into InDesign, as the rendering of Photoshop layers by InDesign is often not as good as Photoshop, and transparency issues may occur

Colour management

• Refer to our Colour Management page before starting your layouts
• Always embed ICC profiles when saving images. We recommend Adobe RGB 1998 as all PDFs will be exported to this
• Never convert images to CMYK. We handle the CMYK converstion to ensure it is suitable for the printer and your selected paper stock

Layout guides:

• Our plugin will create blank InDesign files and provide some simple instructions relevant to the selected product.
• Hide or delete the instructions once read
• Each blank document will have coloured guides to assist with the placement of your content. Ensure the guides are visible (Cmd+H / Ctrl+H) and adhere to the guides in order to avoid issues at print time
• Ensure that all important content (text, faces etc) remains inside the safe area, shown as magenta lines
• For full page or full cover printing, ensure your images extend to all the bleed lines, shown as green lines
• Don't leave the edges of your content between the safe area and the bleed - extend content to the bleed guide or keep it wholey within the safe area
• Every document will have a locked layer containing our required crop marks. Do not delete this layer, as the project will fail to export

Exporting:

• Always export via the Momento Pro menu. This ensures the PDF meets our specifications. Failure to do so may result in delays, disappointing prints and prepress fees.

Designing your pages

Always start a new project via the Momento Pro menu.


 

Simply select the product, print type, binding, shape and size. The options available for each product will automatically enable/disable.

Designing your cover (optional)

Only start a cover once your pages design is complete. The spine width of a cover is based on the number of pages and your paper stock selection, so changing the number of pages in your project file will require you to start a new cover.

Make sure your pages file is open as the current InDesign document then start a your cover via the Momento Pro menu.



Note: You can only use the plugin's cover designer for pages that were created using the plugin.

Select the cover type and paper stock. This allows the plugin to calculate the spine width that is required for the number of pages you created and the stock you selected. Only available options for the product will be enabled.
 

For printed covers, remember to extend your images to meet the green bleed line to ensure that they they extend all the way around the edges of the cover of the bound book.

Remember, if you add or remove any pages in your pages file, you will need to recreate your cover file, as the spine width will change.
 

Export to PDF

Uploading and Ordering