Confused about document setup requirements

[Crista Anderson]

Hi.

I started working with a professional printer and his setup requirements have me confused. I am a newb btw. 

I created an 11x17 doc with an 1/8 bleed all around. He printed it on 11x17 paper and it came out weird. So he told me to make the document's canvas size 12x18 instead, and to add a 1/8 bleed around the 11x17 doc, and that he would print it on a 12x18 piece of paper to be true to size. 

My question is, why do I need to add the canvas size to my 11x17 document? Why can't I just create an 11x17 doc, add the bleed and he print the sucker on 12x18 paper? I truely don't understand why my file needs to be 12x18 when that gets cut off anyway.

[Peter Spier]

Find a new printer. In 20 years I've never had a printer tell me to do what he's asked and I've set up many a file just as you did.

[Bill Silbert]

First of all an 11 x 17 job with bleed should always have been printed on larger paper. However, it occurs to me that the way that you defined your crop marks and bleed could have contributed to the problem. The screenshots below show the correct way to set up crops and bleed. The picture on the left shows the Document Setup dialog (File>Document Setup). In that window you would establish the bleed for the document as highlighted. There also you can confirm that the document size (11 x 17) is correct. Then in the Marks and Bleed section of the Print dialog window you would check the boxes for Crop Marks and Page Information (InDesign then provides the file information right outside the bleed area) and make sure that "Use Document Bleed Settings" has been selected. If you've already done all of this then, as Peter Spier says, get another printer.

[Crista Anderson]

Thank you, this is very helpful. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Just to add to what's been said: designers are almost never required to set up anything for the printer. Lay out the pages, add a bleed if one is needed, and export it to PDF with bleeds and crop marks included. It is 100% up to the printer, who should know his press and sheet sizes and so forth, to print that layout so it can be cut down to the desired page size.

I don't know if your description above comes from a printer who may not be using fully modern processes, or is something of a misunderstanding on your part (or maybe a little of both), but it's simple: lay out your page. Add bleeds and use them appropriately (extending material into them as needed). Add crops at the time of export to PDF. That should be all that's needed by a competent printer. You should not be laying anything out to his sheet or print size, at all.

[Crista Anderson]

Thanks for replying. I think his instructions were communicated poorly. I now believe he was asking me to add in trim marks and crease marks via the larger canvas. 

[BobLevine]

And I'll add on more thing. If you set up the document up as 11x17 with the bleed, many printers won't even want the crop marks. They'll add their own using the information embedded in the PDF itself.

You can check this yourself by opening the PDF in Acrobat and enabling "Show art, trim & bleed boxes" in your preferences.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

True. I have never had a printer object to crop marks in the PDF, but I have seen requests to omit them.  As with all else here, the printer should have clear guidelines or answer reasonable questions. 

[Crista Anderson]

Thank you. 

[John Mensinger]

I am a newb btw. 

Apparently. so is the printer.

[Crista Anderson]

Lol.

[Test Screen Name]

One thing not mentioned - how did you get the design to the printer?  

Good: PDF/X-4 exported

Probably OK: PDF/X-1a exported

If (and only if) the printer demands it: INDD file

Bad, really bad: PDF made with print-to-PDF

Disastrous: JPEG, PNG, TIFF.

Catastrophe: PRN file.

[Crista Anderson]

I did a print to pdf. *Shame.*

[Test Screen Name]

Printing to PDF is bad for several reasons, but a key one for this case is that it won't preserve any bleed info (that is, it won't preserve the info in the PDF that says "bleed size is 11.5 x 17.5 and the trim size is 11 x 17". The canvas size is all that ends up in the PDF. So the printer (in trying to recover this) is trying to get you to design to a fixed size, so that he/she can add back the bleed definitions and run the print.

[Crista Anderson]

In that case, I may be saving the files wrong period. Or setting them up wrong. Here's how I work: 

I create the brochure in photoshop with these dimensions (11x17) + (1/8 bleed) = 11.25 and 17.25. I also add 3/4 or .75 margin to the artwork. 

I export as a png and bring it over to Indesign. That's where things start to get weird. I noticed that when I open the doc in Indesign, things never line up correctly. For example, I'll create the same dimensions in Indesign and the art work tends to be way off in terms of placement. Letters will be scooted to the right, etc. Am I missing something?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Well, where to begin. 🙂

Doing layout in Photoshop is... a very old, mostly deprecated practice, from the days when someone might only have one tool. Doing full layouts in Illustrator is marginally more sensible, but the entire reason you HAVE InDesign is to do complex, multi-element layouts. Photoshop should be for graphics, from small design elements up to full backgrounds, but not for fully composed, text-containing layout.

Exporting to PNG, which is not a particularly suitable format for print, and then placing it in InDesign just for output... let's just say none of that workflow is a very good idea.

And 'printing' to PDF simply shouldn't exist outside of student copies of Word. Export, with full support for all the features, print and color management, and optimizing, is the only acceptable path to a PDF that's good for anything but web display.

So. 🙂

[Scott Falkner]

It sounds like you need to find a new printer.