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 →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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Free pre-flight against IngramSpark's spec, exact errors, exact pages. $9 only if you want the fixed file.
Check my Atticus export →Canva → IngramSpark · Word → IngramSpark · Affinity Publisher → IngramSpark · Every IngramSpark rejection reason
Every setting to verify before you upload to IngramSpark or KDP.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.