Change length of crop marks

[LaurentDesignbureau]

Hallo, I would like to change the standard length of Illustrator's crop marks.

(I need that because I'm exporting colorseparations for silkscreaning. An as crop marks are printed ass well I would like to keep them tiny)
Thanks

[Steve Fairbairn]

I often find it best to make my own crop marks, especially for silkscreen where they need to be rather thicker than usual.

On CS3 it's Filter > Create > Crop Marks. I think CS5 does it with an effect which you can expand and edit as you wish. Just make sure that the crop marks are on the artboard, like this:

[LaurentDesignbureau]

Thanks! Yes, but the build in solution (croppmarks for artboards) gives me so much advantages!
Save without cropmarks for the client
Save with bleed and cropmarks for the Printshop

Switch between multiple artboards
Etc

[Steve Fairbairn]

Oh yes, I know 🙂

You can adjust the weight of automatic cropmarks in the Print dialogue and also their offset, but I think not their length. However, automatic cropmarks are shorter than those produced the other way. Cropmarks for silkscreen should have a weight of at least 1 point. They are useful for registering as well as cropping.

[PrepressPro1]

So, am I to understand you are looking for a way to change the Effect>Crop Mark to make the marks shorter? Here is a link to an action I was using in CS3, I don't know if it works in CS5 because I use the artboard defalt marks now.

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&loc=en_us&extid=1045873

I don't know of any way to change the Effect>Crop Marks other than to change the preferences for these marks to the Asian marks setup. If there is a way to customize the Effects>Crop Marks I would surly like to know too.

[LaurentDesignbureau]

I would rather prefere to change the default Artboard Cropmarks!

Why do we need this: We screenprint on paper that we do not cut later. So the cropmarks are outside the paper which means we print them on the Table.)) Which is ok when they are Tiny! So we need them small because we do not want to print them (as less as possible) but want to use them for adjustment.

Thanks!

[Steve Fairbairn]

Can't you just stick some masking tape onto the vacuum bench where the cropmarks print?

Once you've got things in register you can eliminate the cropmarks entirely by rubbing some filler onto the screen; then remove the tape.

This should save you getting ink all over everything.

At least, that's the way I used to do it.

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

I guess this is a reasonable request though in the old days it was always 4/3 inch for trim marks.

[LaurentDesignbureau]

Can't you just stick some masking tape onto the vacuum bench where the cropmarks print?

Yes, that's what we do. We don't even need the filler. We just print them on the tape. That's ok.

We just want to print less of them.)) Just small dots would be fine.

[LaurentDesignbureau]

Thanks all. Looks like I have to live with large crop marks.)))
Next question: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/853760

[Celestial_passion0D44]

I have this same issue working at a print company. When you are trying to save paper and get a certain size to fit 4 up on a certain size paper, large crop marks don't cut it. I found that once you make your pdf you can then use the crop tool in adobe acrobat to take off the extra .25 and make your crop marks only .125 which is more economical.

You just go to your tools, choose the crop tool, drag the cross hairs around your piece, then press enter. A dialog box comes up and you enter in .25 for all of your trim edges and press enter again. DONE

It's really easy and none of that other junk has to be done. You have instant shorter crop marks and plenty of bleed.

Hope this is helpful to someone!

[richardthebear]

It's actually shocking that Adobe doesn't make this easy it's a constant production problem.

[alexlideas]

save the work in pdf without trim mark, then open it in adobe acrobat, go to tool and look for print production then add printer marks, sel trim marks

[MT Trendsetter]

Please look into this. This is an awesome feature. Coreldraw overtakes adobe only in imposition feature. This script breaks it

DTP Scripting (google.com)