Question on crop marks

I need to create crop marks. I was using CS2, now I have CS5. I know if I select all, then go to "Object" - "Create trim marks" they will appear. Here's my problem. Lets say my document is 12 x 9. I have a small logo in the upper left hand corner only. If I select all & choose create trim marks, it puts the marks around the logo only, not around the document edges. How do I get the crop marks or trim marks around the document edges?
Thanks in advance.
Diana DePasquale

Draw an empty (no stroke, no fill) rectangle that corresponds to your 12 x 9.
Make trim marks from that. And it's not a bad idea to group the rectangle and the trim marks.
Make sure that the artboard is big enough to include the trim marks.

Similar Messages

Printer/Crop Mark Question

Hi all,
I searched through the topics and found a post that was
talking about the crop mark. I have the same problem here, whenever
i go to print>freehand MX>advanced, all that i find is just a
small window called "print preview" that's it. There's no
separations, paper setup, imaging, etc. I tried to open the same
dialog at my school and it has those features.
Judy wrote:
>What is your platform and OS?
>If you are on Mac OS X, did you add the printer using the
Print Setup
>Utility? Is the correct PPD chosen for that printer?
It's OS X and yes, i installed the drivers (I own Epson R1800
and HP Psc 1200 series) and then add them using printer setup
utility. I also use apple airport express to print wirelessly.
My questions:
1. Does it have to be a post-script printer to have those
features? (imaging, crop marks, etc)
2. Does printing wirelessly affect this on Freehand MX?
(doesn't affect my adobe cs2 applications though)
3. What can i do/try to have those features?
p.s. I read about the Xtra but i'm trying to get my Freehand
"fixed" here =)
Thank you
Harry

Thr crop marks will not show unless you have a postscript
printer. If you are sending the job to a commercial printer they
will insert crop marks. If you are printing yourself and require
crop marks you can insert them with a PDF making application such
as Adobe Acrobat Professional. If you don't have that there is an
open source application called PDF maker which you can download at
www.freedomleague.org.za or at least find a link from that
site.

Easy question, I hope: how do I set crop marks?

I just want to specify where the bleed will be. Thaaank you.

in the print dialog box you can grab the Color Managment drop down and get to the output options.
set your bleed and turn on the Crop Marks toggle and you will be able to see where you bleed marker is landing.

Test: Using Crop marks in indesign CS4 with Epson 3800 Mac 10.5.7

Jun 19, 2009 9:35 PM
Crop marks using indesign CS4 with Epson 3800 Mac 10.5.7
My crop marks and pages are printing larger than my document sizes. My paper size is 13x19, so I should have crop marks at the exact corners of the page sizes. But indesign is printing the entire document larger. So my document which is 11x14.75 is now printing 11.25x15.5. All my settings are correct. So, is anyone else using an Epson 3800 with CS4 indesign having issues such as the above? And can I ask (beg) a few of you to do a test print with crop marks and let me know the results?
My workflow has been completely stalled because I can't get my pages to print the right sizes with the crop marks at the right measurements. I'm printing a photo portfolio on the Lumijet double sided paper and "when" it did work awhile back sometime several months ago, the finals looked great. I've already reinstalled both the Epson 3800 driver and the Indesign CS4 software, but the results are still the same.
So, here are my settings:
document size: 11x14.75
in the print panel:
Printer: Epson 3800
Setup: Paper size: Super A3/B13x19, scale 100% width & height, page position Centered
Marks & Bleed: Marks: "Crop Marks" checked. offset: 0, weight: .25, Bleed and Slug: Use Document bleed settings, include slug area. The bleed is 0 for top, bottom, left and right
Color Management: Document profile: Adobe RGB, Options: Indesign handles colors, Printer Profile: (A custom made profile using Xrite for the 3800 with Lumijet paper)
The settings on the Epson 3800
Epson 3800 Printer
Presets (set for the profile mentioned above)
No Color management
Sometimes, on a whim, the printer and indesign cooperate together like good little children should. But not often. And I can not conclude why they are nice to each other sometimes, but given the same detailed data at other times, they fight.
If anyone could run through a similar process using indesign with a photo layout and setting up the printer settings for both the Epson 3800 and in the indesign program and let me know their results, I would value your conclusions very much. You don't even have to waste paper or ink. Finally, after wasting so many pages of paper and of ink. I deleted the photos from the page, and printed it blank with only the crop marks for me to measure if it was coming out right or not.
Thank you for any response. And feel free to call me if you want to vent about Epson 3800's or about Indesign CS4 anytime! I'm up late.... 646 256 8853.
Thaddeus

I specified the paper size as strictly 13x19, no boarderless, no retain size. Same problem. I also did as you suggested below. The pdf document does remain true to the document. As a pdf doc. I changed the color mgmt to Adobe rgb 1998. It looks okay, but not as lively as I get when printing correctly with my color mgmt working and in sync.
Your final question about simply using photoshop. Well... I might go back to it and give up on Indesign if this is the case that it won't simply crop my documents to the sizes that I input them to be cropped as. But, I am using Indesign so that I can create a page layout that I can't do in Photoshop. My folio is about 25 or more pages with double page spreads. I am printing on a two-sided Lumijet paper and my folio was custom designed to be cut out at 11x14.75. If and when it is printed correctly, I am printing on both sides of the paper and trimming it to exact size.
It sounds as if you have exhausted the potential problems and don't have a clear explanation for why the doc isn't printing correctly in Indesign either with the color mgmt. or the document sizes. I'll try one more print using a different color profile similar enough to get at minimum, an okay print. If it doesn't print at least okay, then it isn't most likely my profile..... Okay done. Crazy. The color is inaccurate, but for some reason or another, the document size printed correctly. It measured exactly 11x14.75. What I have done during this period of time is:
First) I did as you suggested and turned the Print to Adobe PDF 9 and created a print there. I measured it and it did measure correctly. I didn't love the color, but... at least it is measuring correctly.
Second) I turned the Printer back to Epson 3800 (I'm beginning to think that this simple gesture was what caused the printer to print correctly) I didn't change any settings, but I did make sure that they were set correctly as before. The paper size was set to 13x19. When I make sure this setting is right in the "printer" dialogue for the Epson 3800, and then switch back to ID, the printer dialogue in Id changes to "Define by Printer." But I changed nothing, other than the profile to an older one that I used before. The color is still inaccurate, but at least for two prints just now back to back, the measurements were correct. What to do? Lol.
Thanks again for all of your time spent trying to resolve this issue.
Sincerely,
Thaddeus

Multiple crop marks in Ai CS3

Ai CS3, Win Xp Pro
I'm setting up business cards for two color printing and need crop marks around each card. Total of 4 cards, 7 cuts. In searching for Multiple Cropmarks on the internet, I'm finding articles that say it's not possible. However, I'm now looking at an Adobe livedocs help page that says:
Define and view additional crop areas
Select the Crop Area tool, and then do any of the following:
To create a new crop area, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) and drag. Each crop area has a unique number in the upper-left corner.
To view all crop areas, press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS).
To set a crop area as the active crop area, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) and click the crop area you want active.
To rotate between crop areas, press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) and click an arrow key.
When I select the first cropped area with the crop tool, and attempt to copy it using the ALT key, a number 1 shows up in the upper left corner (ok so far). But as soon as I let go of the mouse button, the cropped area just moves to the place I've copied it to, and still has the number 1 in the corner. When I have the crop tool selected, and an area defined, I can press Enter and get a menu. There is an exclamation icon at the bottom signifying "Crop areas: 1", but there's no box to select multiple crops.
Am I SOL, or is there a trick to this?
Thanks,
Sandoer

Ok, I've sort of answered my own question with a little more research.
For those that search this topic, here's what I discovered:
If you have several items that need to be cut, such as business cards, 8 or 10 up on an 8.5x11 sheet, you can
+create a stroked box at 2x3.5 (for business cards) around each card.
+one at a time, select a box and from the drop down menus select Filter>Create>Crop marks.
This will create marks that a printer can use for multiple cuts.

Crop Marks – is this how they work?

I haven't had to use crop marks before – my books have been printed on sheets the same size as the InDesign page. Now however, I am about to print a small book, 4-Up, on sheets larger than the page size, so I will need to add crop marks. I want to run my understanding of how to place crop marks on the page and how they will be used by the guillotine man, past some of the experts on this forum.
And before anyone says: "Crop marks are the printer's job. Just let him do it", or somesuch comment – in this case it's not the printer's job, it's mine. I've chosen to do everything: the writing, the layout, purchase of the paper (910 x 650 sheets), the cutting of the paper, the imposition, the printing, arranging the cutting of the sheets, and then the binding. So, I need to know about crop marks. This is what I have discovered, or guessed (please correct me if I'm wrong):
Assume a page size in InDesign of 100 x 200 mm. When you export to PDF and tick Crop Marks and set Offset to a certain dimension, two things happen:
The page size is increased to (100 + 2 (Offset + 5.3)) in width, and (200 + 2 (Offset + 5.3)) in height. In the case of an offset of 5 mm, the page dimensions of the PDF become 120.6 x 220.6 mm.
Crop marks of 5.3mm in length (5/12"), are placed at the four corners of the new page pointing inwards to the original page size. Thus, in this case, there is a gap of 5mm, the chosen offset, between the end of the crop marks and the original page. This offset allows for movement of the sheets during printing, so that when the crops are made the crop marks won't appear on any of the pages. i.e. the offset is greater than the expected sheet movement.
The guillotine man, when he comes to cut the sheets, lines up the narrow beam of light from the guillotine with one of the crop marks – and cuts that edge. Now there are only two crop marks left because two have been cut off in this first cut.
The guillotine man then rotates the sheets 90º and cuts again. Now there is only one crop mark left.
The sheets are again rotated, the beam of light lined up with the remaining crop mark, and the third cut is made. There are no more crop marks left.
For the final cut, the sheets are rotated 90º, but as there are no crop marks left, the appropriate dimension has to be entered into the guillotine (or marked out on the top sheet), and the cut is made.
I have yet to confirm with my guillotine man that steps 3-6 describe how he will do it. That's simply how I imagine it would happen. And in the case of 4-Up, a couple of extra cuts will be needed in the centre, depending on how the imposed pages are positioned.
Is the above an accurate description of how crop marks are inserted and how they are used?

Thanks for the responses.
Stix: Personally if adding Crop marks in InDesign (I prefer to use an imposition program) I like to make them even numbers, e.g. 3mm offset and 7mm long crop marks, whoch give a PDF size that is bigger by 10mm on each side.
Yes, it would make it easier if numbers were whole integers. But how do you tell InDesign to make a certain-length crop mark? I assumed it was fixed at 30 point (5/24" = 5.292 mm).
cdflash: I'm sure there are good answers to all of these questions but they are not in the opening post.
I tried to keep my question as simple as possible, hence I didn't elaborate. But to answer some of your queries…
Or is the OP going to impose each sheet with 24 pages to view?… I am imposing using only InDesign using a method I developed. It's a very flexible method and works beautifully for 2-Up and 4-Up. Some of the imposition software I trialled several years ago was highly sus and not capable, for example, of generating variable-length signatures. I suppose the up-market programs would be okay, but I can't justify spending thousands on a program I might only use a few times.
Out of interest: can the software you suggested, Creo Preps, impose with these signature lengths: 6,6,4,4,4,8 (numbers of sheets per signature; total 128 pages)?
How many pages are in the book? How many copies of the book are required?… Size of Coracina is 148.5mm x 191 mm, 128 pages, 50 copies. The figures I gave for page size were examples only.
… and impose so that the pages get cut out as single pages and then hand-collated?… Printed sheets are 4-Up on SRA3. I chose SRA3 late in the piece when the printer told me that the click-charge was the same no matter what the paper size. Prior to that I was intending to print on A4. Printing costs are now halved.
Why is the OP handling this and not the printer?… I like a challenge, I like to be in control of the process, I like to learn, and I like to save money.
Tanksinker
Check out the images at the bottom of https://sites.google.com/site/tanksinker/Home/max-burns-tanksinker if you'd like to see how I make a book. Doing it all myself results in huge savings. Tanksinker cost me about $10,000 all up, only half of which I got back in sales. It's a hobby. I don't expect or want to profit from it. To print 50 copies of Tanksinker commercially, judging by what a local offset printer told me, would have cost $50k-100k for the plates alone (2 proofs, 400x4 plates each proof, $20-30/plate).
Coracina
I have been to see the guillotine man after reading all the posts above, and he confirmed that the crop marks I was using would be suitable (I just drew them on a piece of paper; I didn't show him the real thing). He did make a useful suggestion: he would trim the SRA3 sheet along the top and bottom of each book-spread (4 horizontal trims), but not trim to the left and right crop marks (vertical trims) because that would be done anyway when trimming the fore-edge after the book was sewn and glued.
A sample page of Coracina, with crop marks ready for printing, can be downloaded here: http://www.mediafire.com/?5eidx1c61o7jrjx
Printing of the first three copies is tomorrow morning, Tasmania time. If the crop marks on the sample, or any other aspect of the layout looks in any way sus or likely to cause problems, please let me know.
Oh, and I should add that Coracina is my partner's book. Way too girly for me. I'm just the technical consultant, shall I say.

Crop Marks don't appear in pdf (Illustrator CS4)

Hi everyone,
I've used the crop marks command (under the effects menu) on a rectangle that is the size of the artboard. I then created a pdf of the document and made sure there was enough bleed to encompass these crop marks, ie. 20mm all round. When I open up the pdf though no crop marks appear.
Can someone tell me why this is happening?
Appreciate any help.

It does do that but it should not show the bleeds as a part of the document it should the document size should be differentiated from the bleed and crop and printer marks area.
You should be able to turn them off for better review purpose with clients and the thing that Acrobat does automatically is to fit the document to the paper size. This I think is a mistake as the ordinary user might not understand what is happening.
If you want to print the document at a 100% it has to go on a paper and to a print that prints documents of a larger size.
It should be clearer as we have reach a point in time where there are most users who have no old world experience with the printing press and plate making so many will not get this true once pointed out it will appear to them as a no brainer.
Also with Acrobat becoming a presentation and conferencing tool for client review in a very live way the ability to turn the bleeds and marks off with a click is very necessary especially hen you have a dead head executive on the other end saying that they never approved that design feature. You can then just click hide the crops or pint out that those marks are outside the documents page size and won't print.
No matter how much sense it makes to you and me because we are very experience with this there will always be people outside our profession that will have a hard time with this and many within our profession as well.
I was aware this was finally included in CS4 but I think it can be improved admittedly you can send a copy of the pdf without bleeds and marks. But you have no control over what they might do on the other side and i have seen some pretty stupid things.
In th old days you know the account exec would come into the art dept and pick the comp off of your drawing table and take his finger and run it over the art and ask is this wet?
I guess I don't have to tell anyone the answer to that question.

Saving as PDF with crop marks.

I'm trying to create a Printready PDF from my Structured FM file. I recently upgraded to FM9.
With earlier versions of FM we've had issues with colours not exporting correctly from FM, and I've had to print .ps files, run a colour correction script and then open the files as .pdf. Due to a limitation of my colour correction script I could only print 5-10pgs at a time. Which made the process very time consuming.
I pitched the upgrade to FM9 to my boss because when I initially tested the trial version and used the 'save as PDF' function, the colours came up correct without having to use the colour correction script.
HOWEVER, now that I'm trying to create printready PDF's of my document, via the save as PDF function, I'm not getting crop marks/registration marks on my files.
On the PDF Setup Dialog box I have 'Western' choosen under Registration Marks. (Screen Shot attached)
Initally I thought it could be because I had the page size set to the exact page size I wanted, but I've tried making the page size bigger and they still don't seem to appear.
Hopefully this is an easy question and I've just missed something simple!

Caveat CMYK!
Unfortunately, it's still not completely reliable. There are issues with quite a number of OTF Pro fonts not rendering correctly, and with spot colour tints and table fills that use spot colours.
The upgrade to from COlourChameleon to PubliPDF may be still worth considering...
Also, with your crop mark issue, how big is the page size compared to the output size that you specifed in the PDF Setup? You have to add at least 1cm to the page size to give it room to place the crop marks.

Crop marks nightmare

I have to supply a multi-page brochure to a client. I can't contact the printers directly so my dilemma is - do I add crop marks? Is this the norm for brochures going to print?- I'm reading all sorts of conflicting info on this and want get my facts straight before contacting the client.
(I can't seem to get rid of the crop marks (that aren't needed) in the centre of the double page spread. I know there's a plug in (print booklet) to resolve this problem but that doesn't seem to produce the same export results. When using same high res export settings with and without plug in - the plug in produces a file size that is 10mb less. This worries me....
What's the best way forward? If you were supplying a brochure would you generally put crop marks or leave them for printer to add?

Thanks for the replies.
The job is to be A4 booklet saddle-stiched A3 spread. When I export with the default crop marks it produces crop marks in the middle spread - just need corner crop marks.But how do I do that?
Think the client prefers the whole brochure as a single PDF rather than each page as individual pdfs. We have the bleed set to 3mm. Assumed the crop marks would be at the page edge (before bleed starts) - what is the offset setting for? Not sure I understand.
We are packaging as a pdf.
What's the norm? should we supply with crop marks? Is this something always expected by printers or is it something printers prefer to do themselves?
Sorry for all the questions...

Blog post about Crop Marks Filter in Illustrator CS4

Sometime back a blog article was posted on Adobe Illustrator Blogs at http://blogs.adobe.com/infiniteresolution/ which talks about how Illustrator CS4 users who wanted/asked for the pre-Illustrator CS4 Crop Marks Filter could get it back.
Mac users can go directly to this link to get the Crop Marks Filter plug-in : http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4617
Win users can go directly to this link to get the Crop Marks Filter plug-in :
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/thankyou.jsp?ftpID=4618&fileID=4288

It does do that but it should not show the bleeds as a part of the document it should the document size should be differentiated from the bleed and crop and printer marks area.
You should be able to turn them off for better review purpose with clients and the thing that Acrobat does automatically is to fit the document to the paper size. This I think is a mistake as the ordinary user might not understand what is happening.
If you want to print the document at a 100% it has to go on a paper and to a print that prints documents of a larger size.
It should be clearer as we have reach a point in time where there are most users who have no old world experience with the printing press and plate making so many will not get this true once pointed out it will appear to them as a no brainer.
Also with Acrobat becoming a presentation and conferencing tool for client review in a very live way the ability to turn the bleeds and marks off with a click is very necessary especially hen you have a dead head executive on the other end saying that they never approved that design feature. You can then just click hide the crops or pint out that those marks are outside the documents page size and won't print.
No matter how much sense it makes to you and me because we are very experience with this there will always be people outside our profession that will have a hard time with this and many within our profession as well.
I was aware this was finally included in CS4 but I think it can be improved admittedly you can send a copy of the pdf without bleeds and marks. But you have no control over what they might do on the other side and i have seen some pretty stupid things.
In th old days you know the account exec would come into the art dept and pick the comp off of your drawing table and take his finger and run it over the art and ask is this wet?
I guess I don't have to tell anyone the answer to that question.

Changing the colors of crop marks

Hi guys.
I´m printing a small job off a inkjet printer and the paper I´m using is black.
So, is there a way to change color of the corner crop marks?
Thank you.

I've never had need nor found a way to change the color from black myself, and I recall another question similar to yours in which the answerer stated it couldn't be done. Unfortunately the forum search feature seems to be broken at the moment.
You could, of course, create your own image that's a bit larger than your print size, complete with black background and white or colored crop marks, then paste your image over it as a second layer. I realize that's nowhere near as convenient as just ticking the checkbox in the print dialog.
Out of curiosity, what kind of inkjet/inks can print on black paper? Sounds like you could get some really cool effects, and I haven't heard of it before.
-Noel

CS5 Crop marks don't work in Save For Web

I'm playing in the trial version of Illustrator 5.
I'm having trouble figuring out the crop marks. I select an object and try the various versions of creating crop marks. But when I Save For Web, it does not use the crop marks as a guide to trim the artwork down. The crop marks are visible.
In CS3, which I've used for years, I would create an object and use the crop mark tool to create the marks at the size of my object. When I would Save For Web it would save the file to the exact size of my crop marks, no matter if I had artwork in clipping masks that go outside the crops.
Why does this not work in CS5?

You do speak the truth so in CS 4 and now Cs 5 you instead of drawing a rectangle and the making it into crop marks you simply draw an artboard then when you export you select to use artboards in the export dialog and select the artboard you just made and voilá.
Now before you go crazy this is an advance you can also choose to export all the artboards a range of artboards or a non-contiguous selection of artboards this way.
the difference here is that you draw the artborad which is actually drawing a rectangle and making the crop marks as in the CS 3 all in one opertation
it is really the same feature with lots of features added to it. Including the ability to name the art boards (cropped areas) number them reorder them
manage them in the artboard panel and then the team went farther than that with pasting in place pasting an element on all the artboards at once.
It is really just the crop area feature but with lots of possibilities.
If you need t draw an artboard within another artboard hold down the shift key.

How do I print the guides on artwork so that Printer will see crop marks?

I designed a wedding invitation in Photoshop CS3 and I need to send him samples of the artwork. I wanted to show him where the Guides are located so that he'll know where to do his cuts. I thought that I could should him where those cuts would go by including the Guides on the artwork. I saved the artwork as a jpeg.
Kareem

I did a quick online search and came up with the following.
http://technology.cca.edu/helpsheets/Photoshop_CS3.pdf
Check it out and see if it helps. If not, please let me know.
I have seen advice not to use crop marks in CS3....printer automatically doing that and in some cases charges for removing them. But, I have not been there and done that, so...
ATR

How do I print a pdf without the standard crop marks that appear when I have created it in Illustrator originally?

Hi
I am so frustrated as I cannot work out why my pdf files that I have created in Illustrator, print out on my printer with crop marks as well as scaling the image to fit them in on the paper. I just want to be able to print it out without the crop marks at the correct and original size it was designed in.
Help Please.

The crop marks are part of the design, no reason why Acrobat wouldn't print them. You could try cropping them out in Acrobat.

Adobe Illustrator CC 2014 - Custom Crop Marks?

Hello all,
I've been looking for a solution to this problem for some time now, and am hoping to find help here!!
Adobe Illustrator CC 2014 - want to be able to customize how crop marks are created through Object>Create Trim Marks. Does anyone know of any plugins that could achieve this? Manually shrinking and shifting the crop marks takes too much time...
Thanks in advance to any contributors!

I know of no plugins for this.
The fastest way we found was to use Libraries.
1. Make one set of trim marks and save it in the library.
2. On a new document, make a box the trim size of your doc.
3. Snap guides to the 4 edges of the box.
4. Drag out the crop marks (double, triple, with registration marks, or whatever you created in your original Library item).
5. Snap each of four mark sets to the guide corners.
Voila.

Question on crop marks

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