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

<<In reality, you can just turn on Crop Marks and specify a bleed setting as your PDF will be fine -- you don't need to do anything in the file itself -- it will all happen automatically when the PDF is generated. >>

..but this is what I did, ie. when creating the pdf I specified 20mm of bleed on all 4 sides but the crop marks aren't showing up. There's blank white space in the pdf where the crop marks should be but they're not appearing. Am I missing something?

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.

You don't have to extend the document size, er, artboard size at all, Wade -- in previous versions you had to, but not in CS4 -- that's because AI CS4 supports true bleed areas (finally).

:) Mordy

Oh, I see. I still think it would be good to be able to see you crop and bleeds in the document even if it is outside the document area and so it will be easier for users to understand that if they want it to print they will have to specify a page size larger then the document.

I think being able to see it extended beyond the document size ill do this for most users.

ah, ok, so this makes total sense. The Trim Marks command just draws lines -- nothing more than that. Just like drawing lines with the Line tool. The older Crop Marks command actually created Crop Marks in the true sense of the word. And that setting was translated into something meaningful in the PDF dialog.

In reality, you can just turn on Crop Marks and specify a bleed setting as your PDF will be fine -- you don't need to do anything in the file itself -- it will all happen automatically when the PDF is generated.

:) Mordy

Hi,

I'm using CS4. The problem is that when I was using CS2, I used to go under the filter menu and apply the trim marks command to a rectangle the size of the artboard. This would position the trim marks outside the boundary of the document but even so, when I would pdf it and apply enough bleed to encompass these marks, they would always appear on the pdf file. I just can't understand why it's not the same in CS4. Admittedly I'm using a crop mark command instead of trim marks but I thought it would be the same, but maybe it works differently.

This is not exactly an Illustrator issue but the crop marks should show regardless of the document size in perhaps a a printer marks area that is a different shade from the document
and even one the can be turned invisible if one wanted it should then automatically tell you the minimum size paper you need to print the crop marks and if your printer can accommodate it.

It seems that many people do not realize fro some reason that crop, bleed and printer marks are outside the document dimensions and that this seems to many a difficult idea to grasp.

I believe even if you cannot see the crop marks in Acrobat the printer marks will print or should print if you tell Acrobat that you are printing on material large enough to have them print.

But the user should be able to see that the document contains these items and that they now have a hint that you need a large piece of material to have them fit.

What version of Illustrator are you using? You'll need to make sure that your document size is large enough to include the crop marks.

:) Mordy