Participant

Question

Modify CropMarks.jsx

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
November 27, 2018
4 replies
2671 views

I'm a designer, so when it comes to coding, my eyes just glaze over and my brain goes numb.

I work at a digital print shop where we specialize in quick turn arounds and strive to produce a high quality end product.

I have done a little modifying of scripts in the past, but would like to do something a little more robust in this case.

One of the things I do on every job, is after I create a new document, I go to the master page and create crop marks. To do this, I have to 1) go to the master page, 2) Draw a rectangle around the perimeter of the page, 3) Run the script, 4) delete the rectangle, 5) return to my document.

I'd like to automate that process, if possible. My thinking is that if I could modify the CropMarks.jsx script so that all I need to do is run it with a new document open, then it would do all five of those actions and I'd be all set to go. I've poked around in the script editor and there are just so many variables, classes, types, functions... Oh dear, there goes my brain getting numb and my screen is getting foggy.

Even better would be to make it a part of the page setup defaults. The script run every time I create a new document (I'm not even sure that's possible).

If it matters, I'm on a Mac running all of the latest software and OS.

This topic has been closed for replies.

antiquecarrAuthor

Participant

"You do know that InDesign can generate crops and other kinds of press marks

without running that script, don't you?"

If you're talking about the crop marks in the print setup dialog box, those won't work for what I do.

Here's my "logic"

I mainly use manually drawn crop marks for jobs that we are going to step out multiple copies on the press sheet. For example, business cards. 1) I create a 1-up version of the card (2"x3.5" document with a .125" Bleed and a .25" Slug) with my crop marks in the slug area, then 2) I create a document the size of the the paper we're going to run it on (11"x17"). 3) I place my 1-up artwork (InDesign file) into the new document and step it out. The crop marks come in with the placed artwork to be used when the job is cut down.

"I assume you know you can go File > Document setup > *Add desired crop > OK"

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. I don't see anywhere in the Document Setup or the New Document dialog box to set crop marks. If there is a way to do it so that I can place the crop marks in the slug area, please let me know how to do it.

BobLevine

Community Expert

I don’t know any modern print shop that would have to do this manually, but if you really need to, why not set up templates for x-up business cards with placeholder frames on a master with the cropmark. Just place the artwork and you’re done.

D

Dynamic Office

Legend

I'm interested in the logic here too,

I assume you know you can go File > Document setup > *Add desired crop > OK

Scott Citron

Legend

You do know that InDesign can generate crops and other kinds of press marks without running that script, don't you?

rob day

Community Expert

What's the reason for manually drawn marks? Is it because the built-in crop marks print as 4-color and you are trying to save costs on a digital press printing one color?

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