What is this grey box around my document?

[cday119]

I have this odd shaped grey box around the background of all my documents.  Anyone know what this is, what its used for, and how to get rid of it?

[Manan Joshi · Accepted solution]

This is called pasteboard, it is a non printable area. You can use it to store images, text elements etc that you would finally place on the document. Anything placed on it will not print.

-Manan

[Madeline347768462jnn]

The question still stands... Or perhaps differently phrased: How can it be reduced in size, mine is 5 times bigger than my panel.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Zoom in on your working page. Try Alt+0 (zero) or Ctrl-Alt-0.

[rob day]

Hi @Madeline347768462jnn , There is a Pasteboard options preference for changing the size of the available pasteboard size relative to the Document Size:

Non facing pages:

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Nice tweak, but is there any relevancy to this adjustment at all? A zoom or display mode that depends on the pasteboard size, etc.? The only issue that would seem to matter is the zoom level.

[rob day]

is there any relevancy to this adjustment at all?

I think the reason for the preference would typically be the opposite—you want more pasteboard space, either to contain big transforms that go off the page or hold lots of PB items.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Ah, that makes complete sense. A sometimes rare thing. 🙂

[rob day]

And if @Madeline347768462jnn sets the preferences to 0 they will get a lot more of this warning—no object can leave the page because there‘s no pasteboard:

[Madeline347768462jnn]

Thank you very much, both @James Gifford—NitroPress and @rob day .