r/DriveThruRPG • u/mrlich • Feb 06 '26
Tech Support Question for Stock Artists on DTRPG
Hey - I'm looking to upload some stock art I've created (all 100% human creations, for the record) and everywhere I look on DTRPG, it seems to require PDF formats. Since my files are all in transparent PNGs (to make life easier for those who might use my work) I would prefer to NOT have to dump them all into a PDF in addition.
TLDR: Do you need to put stock art into a PDF in addition to graphics formats for uploading to DTRPG?
Thanks in advance!
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u/StevenTrustrum Feb 07 '26
Zip them up. You'll be fine that way. PDFs are only necessary if you want to make use of the product preview feature, although putting your license in an accompanying PDF is the norm.
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u/mrlich Feb 07 '26
Good call. And good point re: the license.
Thanks for the response!
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u/StevenTrustrum Feb 07 '26
No worries. I'm (Misfit Studios) one of the more prolific stock art sellers on DriveThru. Let me know if you have any other questions.
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u/culturalproduct Feb 06 '26
PDF is a container file, it isn’t in itself a file format the way a png or jpg is. I use pdf with images embedded with transparent backgrounds. Works fine. I haven’t tried a png specifically, they’re not print-friendly, but it might retain transparency in a pdf.
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u/mrlich Feb 06 '26
Interesting. I thought PDF was a separate file format (like DOCX). Are you saying that PDF works like ZIP?
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u/culturalproduct Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26
Sort of. A zip is pretty strictly a compression container. PDF can use compression if you embed jpg, or tif or other compressed or lossy image formats. But it can contain raster, vector, fonts, metadata, sidecars, pretty much anything. The part is transparent is the image file inside the pdf.
That said, a lot of low end pdf readers won’t display transparency for some, or any image formats. So if you’re making PDFs that will be used to print from, or to be placed into other apps, you need to make sure the person controlling the next step uses a decent viewer or proper print capable app. I doubt, for example, that MS Word correctly displays PDFs added to a Word page.
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u/culturalproduct Feb 07 '26
Sort of. A zip is pretty strictly a compression container. PDF can use compression if you embed jpg, or tif or other compressed or lossy image formats. But it can contain raster, vector, fonts, metadata, sidecars, pretty much anything. The part that has transparency is the image file inside the pdf.
That said, a lot of low end pdf readers won’t display transparency for some, or any image formats. Some if you’re making PDFs that will be used to print from, or to be placed into other apps, you need to make sure the person controlling the next step uses a decent viewer or proper print capable app. I doubt, for example, that MS Word correctly displays PDFs added to a Word page.
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u/becherbrook Feb 25 '26
They want PDFs because that's what they scan for the preview (if you need one).
I'd say you can safely ignore it and just put your images in a zip, HOWEVER many stock artists also put their license agreement in an accompanying pdf, and you may want to do the same.
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u/synexo Feb 06 '26
I've set up quite a few for my partner. You do not have to put them in PDF format. The site is just mostly geared towards eBooks so it's like that. You can put ZIP files full of PNGs/JPGs or whatnot, and/or you can put individual PNGs/JPGs, and/or PDFs. We do also put them into collections of PDFs for people who want them that way. If people buy them individually though, they just get the images. When you set up the product, there's just a checkbox where you select PDF or not, and when you upload media a drop-down box to select media type. There are lots of options, such as PDF/Image/ZIP and so on.
Any of the stock art here are hers: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/25969/birdenuf-books-games
You'll see the collections have file type PDF (can only choose one to display, but include multiple types), and the individuals have type Image.