Atticus → IngramSpark,
without the rejection email.

Atticus makes beautiful interiors — but IngramSpark's pre-flight doesn't care about beautiful. It cares about trim, bleed, fonts, DPI, and CMYK. Here's the export path that passes on the first upload.

Pre-flight my Atticus PDF — free →
BookReady → Atticus to IngramSpark

Atticus is one of the most reliable formatting tools for print interiors — fonts embed correctly and trim sizes export true. Most Atticus → IngramSpark rejections come from a handful of settings mismatches, plus one gap Atticus can't close on its own: CMYK covers. The walkthrough below covers both.

The export path, step by step

1

Match trim size to your IngramSpark title setup — exactly

Pick your trim in Atticus before final layout (5"×8", 5.5"×8.5", 6"×9", etc.) and select the identical trim in IngramSpark's title setup. A 6"×9" file uploaded to a 5.5"×8.5" title is an instant rejection — and the error message won't say which side is wrong.

2

Decide bleed up front

Text-only interiors don't need bleed. If any image touches the page edge (chapter art, full-page photos), IngramSpark wants the artwork extended 0.125" past trim and the PDF exported at trim + bleed. Mixed setups — bleed pages exported at trim size — are a top-3 rejection cause.

3

Check your images before placing them

Atticus embeds images as you provide them. A screenshot or web image placed at full page width will land under IngramSpark's 300 DPI line no matter what Atticus does. Rule of thumb: a full-width image on a 6"×9" page needs to be at least 1800px wide.

4

Export PDF for print — then verify, don't trust

Use Atticus's print PDF export (not EPUB). Fonts embed automatically. But "exported cleanly" and "passes Ingram's pre-flight" aren't the same claim — transparency, color profiles, and PDF version are invisible in a visual check.

5

Handle the cover separately — this is the CMYK gap

IngramSpark requires covers as CMYK PDF/X-1a at exact full-wrap dimensions (back + spine + front + bleed, spine width computed from your page count and paper). Design tools — Atticus's cover builder, Canva, Word — work in RGB. Your cover needs a true CMYK conversion before upload, not just a renamed file.

The 60-second shortcut: upload your exported interior (and cover) to BookReady. The free scan runs IngramSpark's actual checks — per-image DPI, trim/bleed boxes, font embedding, PDF version, CMYK — with page numbers for anything that fails. The $9 auto-fix converts RGB→CMYK and produces a PDF/X-1a file Ingram accepts. Money-back if it's still rejected.

Exported from Atticus? Verify it now.

Free pre-flight against IngramSpark's spec — exact errors, exact pages. $9 only if you want the fixed file.

Check my Atticus export →

Related guides

Canva → IngramSpark · Word → IngramSpark · Affinity Publisher → IngramSpark · Every IngramSpark rejection reason

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