Is there a way to control the length of the bleeding marks?

[nsgma]

Is there a way to control the length of the bleeding marks?

I am trying to minmize waste, so I have a 20cm page so I can bleed images in a normal A4 paper. But with the standard length of the bleeding marks I am unable to print the resulting PDF in actual size and see the right mark.

Thanks, N

[Jens Trost]

Are you on Windows or macOS?

You can create custom printer marks, but apparently that is broken in the recent versions on Windows.
But you can give it a try anyway, maybe that's not the case for everybody:

– create a new file in a simple texteditor (TextEdit or Editor), make sure it is simple text (no rich text with formatting)
– paste the following

//pgmk.v02.00
<
Style (PageInfoOnPage)
MarksArray
[
<
Type FourCropMarks
Length
8.220485
>
]
>

– you can adjust the length, here it is 2.9 mm (in points)
– on macOS: save to /Library/Application Support/Adobe/PrintSpt/2.9 mm.mrk (or whatever name you want)
– on Windows it's apparently in /Program Files/Common files/Adobe/PrintSpt/
– then you can select it in InDesign's export tab:


See also
https://creativepro.com/creating-custom-printer-marks-in-indesign/

[nsgma]

Thank you, Jens

I am on windows.

I was able to have the new type showing up on the menu. However, I tried several lengths and it did not have any effect on the length of the crop lines. 

I could not find any info about the syntax for the mrk files.

Any ideas?

N

[Jens Trost]

Yea, that's what I heard – it doesn't work any longer on Windows. I'm no expert so I don't know if the code (which works on macOS) has somehow be changed.

You could upvote/comment here
https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/36077206-custom-crop-ma...

[Laubender · Accepted solution]

Hi nsgma,

if nothing is working draw your own cropmarks with color [Registration] on applied master pages.

Add a reasonable amount of bleed or slug so that your cropmarks are visible in the exported PDF.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Jens Trost]

Instead of drawing all marks yourself:
create a temporary rectangle, full page size, and then run the CropMarks script which comes with InDesign 🙂