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A
AlNotAI0249
Inspiring
February 15, 2023
Question

FM 2020 and FM 2022 don't display crop marks in PDF output.

  • February 15, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 783 views

I have seen several posts about issues with crop marks not printing with various FM versions, but no solutions. I have been using FM 2019 and printing books with the Adobe PDF printer driver, printing PDFs with registration marks, crop marks, and color bars. When I moved to FM 2022 from FM2019. using the exact same settings, the registration marks printed, but no crop marks or color bars. And when I try to use the publish pod to generate PDFs where I could explicitly select what marks to print, FM spits out a PDF without any text at all and no print marks either. The output has all the pages, mostly blank but with some of the graphics from the FM source but FM hangs without completing and I have to kill the process to recover. So I am assuming it is the interaction between FM and the Adobe printer driver, but I have run out of things to try to fix it. Tried rolling back to FM 2020 with latest updates and same issue. But FM 2019 still works. Has anyone else had this problem and actually figured out how to fix it?  I am running windows 10. 

 

Thanks...

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    3 replies

    M
    matsb99251617
    Inspiring
    February 16, 2023

    The process below worked for me in FM 2020. I tested it in FM2022 and it does not work. However, STS files that were created in FM2020 and upgraded to FM2022 that have crop marks as per below work fine. I've reported the bug today. The attached PDF is generated using a STS file that was upgraded from FM2020 to FM2022, and using FM2022.

     

    1. Create a new *.sts file.

    2. On the Outputs tab and then PDF > General tab i the STS window, set a larger PDF page size than the document page size. I use A4 (210 x 297 mm) as the document page size and set the page size to 250 x 337 mm (i.e. 20 mm exra space on all edges).

    3. On the Outputs tab and then PDF > Marks and Bleeds tab, select All Printer's Marks.

    4. Create the PDF using the Publish pod and this *.sts file.

     

    Note that you do not need to change the document size in the *.fm files to a larger size, only the PDF page size in the *.sts file.

     

    Mats

    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 15, 2023

    If you have the full Acrobat {Pro} product, a work-around for this is to use the Print Production tools to increase the page size {set Page Boxes, if needed} and Add Printer Marks.

    A
    AlNotAI0249Author
    Inspiring
    February 15, 2023

    Thanks for the workaround. After several hours of uninstalling and reinstalling Acrobat, Adobe PDF printer drivers, and FM 2022, I finally installed everything in the order that the system liked. And the Publish pod now generates PDFs with crop marks. Still can't do it from the Print Book dialog, so I may need to use this workaround at some point. 

    W
    Community Expert
    Winfried RengCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 15, 2023

    Hi,

     

    I will check this later more thoroughly. Now only a question: Can you active and deactivate the option in the Publish pod to create the PDF with or without Distiller?

     

    And the paper size is larger than the content, so that there is enough space for the crop marks?

     

    Best regards

     

    Winfried

    A
    AlNotAI0249Author
    Inspiring
    February 15, 2023

    Hi Winifred. The paper size is larger than the content. But it wasn't working no matter what selections I made in the publish pod. I tried with and without Distiller. I tried subsets of the printers marks and all the printers marks. I had removed and installed Acrobat a couple of times, and all that did was add additional instances of the Adobe PDF print driver but still no crop marks.

    So finally I used print management (printmanagement.msc from a command dialog) to remove the Adobe PDF printer drivers and the Adobe PDF converter, uninstalled all acrobat and FM instances and re-installed Acrobat Pro (64bit this time), and then re-installed FM 2022 and installed the latest update. Now I can generate using the publish pod, and I get crop marks whether I have the Distiller option checked or unchecked.

    However, I still can't generate using the legacy Print Book interface with the Adobe PDF printer driver. In that mode, I still get just registration marks and no crop marks. But at least the publish pod is working for now.

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