Issue in a nutshell: I'm wire-framing sites in Illy CS5 for it's snap to pixel grid features. I have my document set up to use pixels as units, raster effects at 72dpi, and RGB color. So as far as I can tell everything should be formatted correctly. The issues arise when I save the comps to PDF so I can e-mail them to clients. Two things happen, from what I can tell so far, that are most likely related. First, the PDF artboard size doesn't match the Illy artboard size. Comparing 100% zoom size side by side on each, the PDF appears to be 33% too large (i.e. they look identical when the PDF is at 75% zoom and Illy at 100%.) Second, what I thought was a separate problem originally, when placing PSD's at 72dpi they look crisp in Illy and Photoshop but appear blurry when saved as PDF (I'm assuming because of the 33% scale distorting them.) When saving the PDF I've tried using "Smallest File Size", "High Quality Print", and some custom settings (downsampling images to 72dpi) just to see if I can get anything to work. Everything comes out oversized though. Also, I know there are options to export as .png, .jpg, ect... and that you can "Save for Web and Devices." I want to avoid using these if possible because they tend to be slow, don't favor multiple artboards, generally handle text poorly, and are not as good as a PDF for emailing to clients for review.
In the reading I've done searching for a solution it looks like most people have their artboard or PDF preferences set up incorrectly. Usually resulting in a drastically larger or smaller image, roughly 4 times, because the file is being saved at 300dpi instead of 72dpi. What throws me for a loop is the 33% scale because I'm not seeing a direct relationship between print quality dpi and web dpi mussing things up. There must be some setting or box I'm not checking to save the file correctly, but am not sure where to go about it.
Thanks for all your help, and let me know if you need any more info.
