Hello! I need help with adding crop marks to 8.5"x11" InDesign file. I need the crop marks to be at the 8.5"x11" mark and the document when exported to be at 9"x12" document size in PDF. Would someone be able to point me in the right direction regarding the printing requirements I need to set up in order to get it exported correctly?
Adding crop marks is usually a function of export to PDF, which has extensive control over size, placement, spacing etc. (see the Marks & Bleeds panel of the PDF export menu).
Net size of the document is usually irrelevant as printers (digital and the ink-stained kind) will automatically center it on a print sheet, or impose it on a master sheet as needed for cutdown. If for some reason you need the doc to be exactly 9x12, you can set bleed width to pad it out (1/4 inch on each side, 1/2 inch top and bottom). But there should be a good reason to even bother, given how printing works.
You do not have control over size. InDesign crop marks are always 0.208". You can change the weight and offset.
Printers will usually layup on to the printing material and usually do not care about the overall size unless the printing material is a specific size. Printers also usually prefer to have as much bleed as possible (which is actually where the crop marks end and not what the setting is in InDesign.).
I would say put the bleeds at where Mr. Gifford said and place the offset for the marks at 0.042" which is as far as you can put them out on the width without pushing past the 9".
Net size becomes more important with ease and speed of imposition. For a 1-up or 2-up document, you are correct, it doesn't matter. When you are placing multiple-up and multi-directional imposition pages, have a specific size does make things slightly quicker, especially when updating to a new file in an already designed multi-up template file. In creating multiple up offset plates, I would like my crop marks to be 1/8" offset and 1/8" long, adding a quarter inch per side to my finished size. With all of the tools in indesign, this should be an easy to adjust parameter and it isn't.
Imposition of images with crops should be completely... controllable by the RIP and imposition software. As noted, the goal is almost always just to get the overall image centered in its assigned plate space, with or without cropping to size, which should not be a demanding step thrown off by net image size or crop mark position.
As a prepress person who has worked with imposition software, crop marks are cropped off in the imposition anyway; so in fact aren't really necessary, but are helpful to visualize before we process the files. We position pages according to the trim box (or bleed box) defined in PDFs. If, for some reason, a PDF is missing either of those two (rare these days), we center according to the overall size of the PDF, which would normally be symmetrically spaced, unless there was a slug added.
Also: minisidebar: I usually recommend our clients to change InDesign's default trim marks offset from 6pt to 9pt so any crop marks are totally ouside the bleed.
do you really mean 9 x 12? That's not adding the same amount in both directions and the only way I can think to do that is to add slug or bleeds that are uneven as @James Gifford—NitroPress suggested.
If you want to add an equal amount around all edges, the easy way is to change the offset of the marks (which by default are too close anyway). My printer asks for an offset of 0.2917 inch which reults in a half inch addition on each edge, so your 8.5 x 11 would wind up att 9.5 x 12.
If you go that route, define a new export preset (File > Adobe PDF Presets > Define...) withthe new offset so you don't have to remember waht the value is.
And that's it — any total size of the export doc should work if the printer is capable of the simple task of imposing it (and, if necessary, cropping any outer junk) on their plate for press. The net size of the doc is... just about the most meaningless dimension/s I can think of in this situation, yet it has come up with regularity in recent posts. I don't know if it's old-school printers, novice printers or poor communication from printers to (often somewhat newer) designers. But it's an almost wholly irrelevant factor if crops and bleeds are otherwise set up correctly.
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