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jmiteff
jmiteff
Participating Frequently
October 15, 2022
Question

Adobe Acrobat Pro Preflight tool Values

  • October 15, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 1751 views

Hello:

 

Can someone explain the values that appear beside the TrimBox entry under Page Information? When you run a check to verify compliance with PDF/X-1a, an Overview item appears that drops a tree with various sub-items, including one called Pages. Under Pages, Page Information appears with entries and values for the MediaBox, CoprBox, TrimBox, BleedBox, etc.

 

I have a document that is supposed to have an 8x10 TrimBox and an 8.125x8.25 BleedBox. Those entries say exactly this:

 

TrimBox (Inch): 8.0x10.0 (0.0/.125/8.0/10.125)

BleedBox (Inch): 8.125x10.25 (0.0/0.0/8.125/10.25)

 

Why is the second value in parentheses of the TrimBox have a .125? Why does the fourth have a 10.125? 

 

On screen, the Trimbox measures and is positioned correctly as 8x10 on the pages. I am wondering why it is showing those .125 and 10.125 values. All my PDF files us the same bleed values, so it seems consistent in all of them, but I am running into a problem with a particular print job and they are pointing fingers at me. 

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

T
Test Screen Name
Legend
October 15, 2022

The first is the size (2 figures). The second is the coordinates (4 figures). Your trimbox is not centred in the bleedbox, which is legal but unusual.

jmiteff
jmiteffAuthor
Participating Frequently
October 15, 2022
Fascinating...

This may be causing some of the problems I might be facing. How can I
correct this? The file appears normally with the proper trim and borders on
the Acrobat screen, even when measuring. The Set Page Boxes also do not
show anything anomalous, so I never noticed until I scrutinized the Page
Information and saw that curious seeming inconsistency. I used InDesign to
generate the file and entered 8x10 for the document size. The PDF is
intended for Amazon KDP. All of the files I have generated to date,
including the last 9 books, all show the same coordinate shift but have
printed normally. The last one just will not and is consistently off at the
top by about .125... Although the last proof was off at the sides as well.

The bleed is supposed to be .125 on the outside, top and bottom of the
page. How would it know the center alternating from odd-even (recto verso)
pages? Is it the format smart enough to know that (just asking)?

What should the values be for the TrimBox to be centered? Is there a way to
correct this? This way I can try it and see if my files behave on KDP. I
don't know of a way to change this on output from InDesign or after the
fact in Acrobat.

Any thoughts?
jmiteff
jmiteffAuthor
Participating Frequently
October 15, 2022
Hi Test Screen Name:

I think the coordinates are correct, at least for a Recto page. If you take
an 8"x10" TrimBox and start at the left-most side at 0", drop it down from
the top .125", it's rightmost border will be at 8" and its bottom border
will be at 10.125". Acrobat obviously knows if the pages are alternating
and dynamically adjusts the TrimBox accordingly. This isn't usually a
problem with conventional documents, but is a problem with books that often
have borders between that do not match from the gutter to the outside. I
have never encountered this problem when putting a book together since all
the pages are numbered and generally fixed in terms of layout.

Thanks for clearing that up.

I still have my problem though, with Amazon KDP. The files I am uploading
refuse to completely appear border to border in their Previewer (a small
white line remains on the right side) and they are saying things like the
files are technically correct but averaging them out is causing problems.

This is an actual excerpt:












*> They say that the dimensions of your interior file are 8.125" x 10.25",>
however, your trim box is set to 8" x 10." Although this is technically>
correct, as the trim box determines the dimensions of the page after it
has> been printed and trimmed, when the file is processed for use in POD,
the> page boxes are averaged out which could result in the content shift
seen in> the printed products. This is the most likely cause as the white
space is> consistent throughout the images provided by the publisher.>> In
order to prevent this issue from recurring, we recommend that you> create a
new PDF ensuring all page boxes are sized at the full 8.125" x> 10.25". If
you are printing to PDF, you should not use the automatic> setting, but
instead set this for the trim size as well.*

I actually did what they suggested and the problem remained the same. All
of these files check out in Acrobat. The files I created with the bleed
built into the page size report all Boxes as 8.125x10.25 and all
coordinates at (0.0/0.0/8.125/10.25) as you would expect. They do have you
add a cover file that has different dimensions and I loaded as well. Thes
files check out fine in Acrobat, but they have yet to get one right yet. I
have nine other books that currently print fine and they were output with
the earlier method from InDesign. I don't know what the problem is.

Everything appears correct in these files yet they insist that a small
white line at the side and a small white line that sometimes appears at the
bottom of their preview are causing a white border at the top of the page,
when it is apparent the entire page is shifted downward at least a tenth of
an inch and the ink doesn't even extend as much as it should at the top
border including the bleed, and after (4) proofs the 5th has a line along
the rightmost edge, too.

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