Adding pages features to Acrobat

The pages panel of Acrobat has many features such as rotate, extract, crop and split, but is missing several features that many users would appreciate as standard:

• Break readers spreads
• Break printers pairs
• Reverse page order
• Interleave two files
• Duplicate pages in a 1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2-2-2 sequence
• Duplicate pages in a 1-2-1-2-1-2 sequence

Breaking spreads and pairs

Breaking readers spreads has been covered on this blog several times so won’t be discussed in this post, but breaking printers pairs has proved to be a little more challenging and an Acrobat-based solution remains to be found.

Reversing and interleaving

Solutions have however been found for the last four of the bullet points. One solution solves two of the missing page features, namely reversing page order; and interleaving two files. The script can be found in post 8 on the following thread:

Once added to the javascripts folder of Acrobat, two new items are added to the Edit menu: Collate and Reverse. The collate option allows another file to be interleaved into the already open PDF. The Reverse function simply reverses the page order of the already open PDF.

An alternative solution for users who want to reverse order lots of PDFs at once may want to make an Acrobat action. From the file menu, select Action Wizard, and Create New Action.

In the new window, click on the “More Tools” panel in the left hand column and choose “Execute Javascript”. The window that should now look similar to this, click on the “Options” button within the Execute Javascript step and type the following in the next window that appears:

for (i = this.numPages - 1; i >= 0; i--) this.movePage(i);

From here, click Save. A prompt will appear asking for a name and description of the action.

Once an action has been made, it can be called upon by navigating to the File menu, Action Wizard, and then selecting the action.

Actions made in this fashion will prompt for a file or files. Once selected, the action will then run and prompt for a save location.

Duplicate pages in a 1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2-2-2 sequence

Again, this solution is provided in the form of an Acrobat action. It effectively follows the same steps as creating the reversing action but with one important difference – to tick the checkbox “Prompt User”. The script for this action can be found here:

When this action is run, the usual prompt for a file will appear. However, there will be a pause where the javascript console will once again appear. It is at this point the amount of duplicates are typed in.

Duplicate pages in a 1-2-1-2-1-2 sequence

This solution is almost identical to the solution above, except that the script for the action is different. The script can be found in the following forum post:

Other solutions

The action wizard feature of Acrobat is often overlooked. Apart from running custom javascripts, the wizard allows general Acrobat functions such as extract images as tiff, or recognise OCR text to run. Prior to the release of Acrobat XI reader, anyone using Acrobat X reader could not comment or mark-up a PDF unless the file had been specifically saved from Acrobat with commenting enabled. Doing this via the menus is tedious, especially if there are many files enable, but using an action this was quite simple. It was also simple to set the initial views so that a client will see the PDF to fit height, as spreads with the cover turned on.

Having these options available while making the PDF from InDesign would solve this issue permanently… perhaps in future updates of InDesign CC.

Anyone interested in looking for more script based actions may want to have a look at this site and this site.

Fixing readers spreads: Third time lucky

For print providers, finished art PDFs supplied as readers spreads can create a nuisance. So that the imposition software can correctly impose the pages in the correct order for press, the pages have to be presented as individual pages as opposed to readers spreads. Rather than inconvenience a customer and ask for the file to be prepared again, it is easier to split the PDF into individual pages, but until recently this procedure was a tedious method of copying and pasting a PDF into an InDesign file set as spreads and then preparing an output PDF as individual pages.

However, this blog has provided two solutions so far to do this:

1. Via two javascripts and a procedure within InDesign (read the full story here);
2. A javascript within Acrobat (read the full story here)

Now a third method exists. This method uses both Acrobat and an InDesign script.

1)   With the “spreads” PDF open in Adobe Acrobat, save the document as single pages. This can be done (in Acrobat X) by using the split document feature and splitting into 1pp documents;

or (in Acrobat 9 or above) by extracting pages as single pages.

Put these PDFs into a folder of their own.

2)   Create a new InDesign file the correct finished trim size, as readers spreads, and the same amount of pages as the intended finished artwork.

3)   Once the file is created, run this script:  A prompt will ask for the folder of PDFs to import – navigate to that folder and click OK.

4)   A prompt will warn once the file is finished. All that is then left to do is tidy up the first and last pages that are centered within the spreads, they only need to be centered within their appropriate pages and any unnecessary pages deleted.

I’m not sure who was the original author of the script but can only credit those who contributed to the forum where the script was adapted for this purpose.

When readers should be single… version 2.0

In an earlier post a solution was prepared to create single pages from PDFs supplied as readers spreads. The solution breaks the readers spreads back to single pages via InDesign and two javascripts. While the method works, it’s clunky and not a true turnkey solution to the problem. At the end of the article, there was a link to a post that featured a script available by fellow WordPresser Karl Heinz Kremer, but his solution was not given the attention that it deserved. This is because on first attempts with the script, there were several issues:

• Acrobat scripts seemed to be harder to install than InDesign scripts;
• The script kept presenting faults;
• When the script did work, it seemed to be more appropriate for PDFs that did not contain bleed.
• The script would not resolve “printers pairs”

However, it paid to persist with Karl’s method because it turns out to be a better solution… with some manipulation.

First thing to do is download the script. It is available from this link.

The first issue to overcome was where to install the script. Different versions of Acrobat on different platforms all have different locations for the script to be installed to. The best advice is to go to any of the online resources that suggest the location for installing the script varied given that it can be a case of trial and error to find the correct location.

Once the location is determined, a minor change may have to be made, depending on the version of Acrobat that is used. In Acrobat X and above, a line in the script has to be changed so that the script can be accessed from the Edit Menu. At the time of writing this article, the script refers to a “Document” menu, that Acrobat X no longer has. To do this, open the downloaded file in a text editor and look for this line:

cParent: "Document",              // this is the parent menu. The file menu would use "File"

now change this line to:

cParent: "Edit",              // this is the parent menu. The file menu would use "File"

 

The next issue to overcome was an error that kept appearing. After some persistence, it seems that the script will only error if the first and last pages are different sizes. In this example, the first page is a different width to the last page in the PDF.

Upon running the script, an error dialog appears.

For the script to work correctly, the first and last pages have to be the same size.

The third issue was that the script seemed to work best for PDFs that did not contain bleed. The reason is that the script works using the Cropbox measurements, but it does not have to. Instead, the script can be changed to use the trim or bleed measurements of the PDF. In the script, look for three lines which look like:

                        var cropRect = newDoc.getPageBox("Crop", i);

and

                                                cBox: "Crop",

this line appears twice.

Now change the word “Crop” to “Trim” and the script will use the Trimbox rather than the cropbox. Similarly, changing the word “Crop” to “Bleed” in these three lines will use the Bleedbox.

Once these amendments to the script are made, the PDF can be successfully split using a more appropriate measurement box. Using the Trimbox is of use to printers given that imposition software tends to refer to these measurements for page imposition but will still retain the original bleed of the file prepared by client.

My final issue was that the script could not fix printers pairs. Again, this is not necessarily true, but it involves more work than a simple click of a menu… but I will save this for another post.

Improving on the default scripts

 

One of the features that I like about InDesign is the ability to automate repetitive tasks using scripts. Since discovering this feature, using scripts have become part of my everyday work routine.

InDesign ships with 20 scripts, but with few exceptions the same scripts have been shipped with InDesign for the past six releases.

The scripts are (as described by Adobe itself on its website):

AddGuides.jsx – Adds guides around selected object/objects.

AddPoints.jsx – Adds points to the paths of the selected object or objects.

AdjustLayout.jsx – Moves objects by specified distances on right/left pages.

AlignToPage.jsx – Aligns objects to specified positions on a page.

AnimationEncyclopedia.jsx – Automatically creates buttons with different animation properties.

BreakFrame.jsx – Removes a selected text frame and its contents from a story.

CornerEffects.jsx – redraws the path of the selected item or items using a variety of corner effects. Corner effects can be applied to selected points on the path.

CreateCharacterStyles.jsx – Defines a complete character style based on the selected text.

CropMarks.jsx – Adds crop and/or registration marks around the selected object or objects.

ExportAllStories.jsx – Exports all stories in a document to a series of text files.

FindChangeByList.jsx – Performs a series of common text find/change operations by reading a tab-delimited text file.

ImageCatalog.jsx – Places all graphics in a specified folder in a “contact sheet” layout.

MakeGrid.jsx – Creates a grid by subdividing or duplicating the selected object or objects.

Neon.jsx – Applies a “blend” effect to the selected object or objects.

PathEffects.jsx – Changes the position of path points on the selected object or objects to add a creative effect.

PlaceMultipagePDF.jsx – Places all pages of a PDF.

SelectObjects.jsx – Selects objects on the active spread by their object type.

SortParagraphs.jsx – Sorts the paragraphs in the selection alphabetically.

SplitStory.jsx – Splits the text frames in the selected story into separate, unlinked text frames.

TabUtilities.jsx – Applies tab stops and indents to the selected text.

But after six releases, some of these scripts have either become redundant or improved upon elsewhere.

Scripts that have become redundant thanks to the user interface are:

• AlignToPage.jsx; and
• CornerEffects.jsx

Both scripts perform tasks which are just as easy to do in the actual user interface. Since InDesign introduced Live Corners, the CornerEffects script is actually more of a burden to use given that the script interface is hard to understand.

Also, objects made using the CornerEffects script do not hold their rounded corners once scaled.

Scripts that ship with InDesign but have been improved by other users:

• AdjustLayout.jsx;
• FindChangeByList.jsx; and
• MakeGrid.jsx

As each version of InDesign had different ways of interpreting javascript, the AdjustLayout behaved differently from version to version. Fed up with this, a co-author of Real World InDesign CS6 Ole Kvern has fixed this script and it can be downloaded here

For users working in millimetres, the MakeGrid script had one quibble that was it would always display measurements in points, but again the script has been fixed by Gerard Singelmann and can be downloaded here (this contains several scripts in German, the MakeGrid script is the one called Rahmen zerschneiden.jsx).

The FindChangeByList script itself hasn’t been improved upon, but the way of entering the find/replace values into the text file where the script gets its values from has. Kasyan Servetsky has a script called Recordfindchange which works by entering the values into the find/replace dialog box, then running the script which creates a text file which can be copied and entered into the text file being referenced by the FindChangeByList.jsx script. Kasyan’s script can be downloaded here.

Scripts that have been made obsolete by scripts made by others:

• CropMarks.jsx
• ExportAllStories.jsx
• PlaceMultipagePDF.jsx
• SortParagraphs.jsx
• SplitStory.jsx

The CropMarks Script had issues given that by default, it did not account for bleed and would put crop-marks within the gutters. An alternative by Loïc Teixeira resolves these two issues and can be downloaded here. 

The ExportAllStories script still works but Kris Coppieters of Rorohiko has made a much better export. This one is a paid feature but if text exporting from InDesign is to be done often, is well worth it and can be downloaded here.

The PlaceMultipagePDF has been made quite obsolete by a much better script by Scott Zanelli called MultiPageImporter.jsx which not only imports PDFs but also allows page rotation, scaling, offsets, reverse page order… it’s massive! This script is one which is so good it even has its own manual. More information on the script can be downloaded here.

SortParagraphs again is a good script but Peter Kahrel has made a much better version.

SplitStory again works well but there is just a better version out there by Adi Ravid called StorySplitter which rather than just splitting the stories also has a dialog box with a few options. Again, that script can be found here.

If there any of the default scripts which have been made obsolete that I haven’t covered in this article, please let me know.

 

 

 

 

Going beyond “Stencil Letters”…

I find that the Data Merge tool is one of the most under-rated features of InDesign and most tutorials which one can Google on the Internet relate to either making business cards, old-fashioned mail-merges a la Microsoft Word, or rather rigid-looking catalogues.

However, once the Data Merge tool is combined with either clever spreadsheets using Microsoft Excel, GREP styles, anchored objects and applying features from the Effects palette or Object Effects, the Data Merge tool becomes much more powerful.

In previous posts I’ve done exactly this to create:

• Pie Graphs
• Bar Graphs
• A one-size fits all name-badge solution

In this post, I will demonstrate how to make more interesting campaigns using Data Merge. Examples include:

• Street Sign
• Speech Bubble
• Pencil Case letters
• Scrabble Letters

In all of the following examples, the database names:

• were between 3-11 letters long;
• were English letters (no letters with accents, umlauts, cedillas, etc). Examples 3 and 4 are possible with foreign letters but would involve more steps not shown in this post.
• were whole names (no spaces or dashes). Spaces and dashes are possible but in examples 3 and 4 would involve more steps not shown in this post.

1: STREET SIGN

The easiest of the four examples, the principle for this merge works using 3 things

• a blue background with a blank street sign running along the entire page;
• a centered text block above the street sign;
• two anchored object images: the pole plus some blue sky; and blue sky tapered on an angle.

Put simply, the centered textbox contains the mergefield plus the word “ST”. This sits above the street sign and one anchored object (the pole plus the blue sky strip) goes to the left of the mergefield, and the other anchored object of tapered blue sky goes to the right of the mergefield.

The result is as the name changes, so does the position of not only the pole, but where the street sign ends, resulting in a dynamically made street sign which is always centered in the sheet.

Download the Street Sign PDF (which contains the InDesign file as an attachment).

2: SPEECH BUBBLE

This works on a similar principle as the street sign, but because anchored objects always go in front of the textbox they are pasted into, two textboxes have to be made: one containing the variable data (in white) plus the parts of the speech bubble which have to expand; and another containing the variable data only in black in the textbox above.

All works well with this design until the merge comes to the record of Christopher, where gaps appear between the plain rectangle and left/right of the bubble. To compensate for this, a GREP style was made to the type in both textboxes so that once there were 11 characters, the character style became scaled. This is much like the trick used in a recent post, the Square Peg in a Round Hole.

Download the speech bubble PDF (which contains the InDesign file as an attachment).

3: PENCIL CASE LETTERS

This was MUCH HARDER given that:

• The letters were not fixed width, so each “letter” had to be in its own merge; and
• Pencil case letters do not usually have blanks all the way to the end of the plastic inserts.
• The letters are right aligned

To do this one, the first thing was to make the letters A-Z. This was done by making an InDesign file 26pp long with the design on the master page containing both the background and the letter as alpha page numbers. This was then made into PDFs which were split into single pages and renamed A.pdf through to Z.pdf using Batch rename in Bridge.

The next trick was getting the names to appear in the database as single letters and in such a fashion that the letters would appear in the correct places. This meant making a formula which would:

• Know which letter was in a certain position (e.g. 3 letters in, at the end, etc);
• Know if a letter had nothing in it and would remain blank;
• Would add the letters .pdf at the end of the result so that the merge would know it was looking for a picture, rather than placing text.

So the following formula was made for all letters except for the last letter:

=UPPER(IF(ISTEXT(MID($A2,LEN($A2)-X,1)),MID($A2,LEN($A2)-X,1)&”.pdf”,))

where X represents how many letters away from the right hand side that needs to be displayed in the cell, and A2 is the name which is to be split into individual letters.

The last letter had the following formula:

=UPPER(IF(ISTEXT(MID($A2,LEN($A2)*1,1)),MID($A2,LEN($A2)*1,1)&”.pdf”,))

The excel file was saved just in case, but was also saved to a Tab Delimited Text file for InDesign.

The rest was easy. Pencil case clipart is to the back, plastic holders are to the front, and 11 graphic frames representing the letters are made. Once the data is called in from the Data Merge palette, the picture fields were put into the appropriate graphic frames so that, once preview was on, the letters would change and but effectively be right-aligned, and contain necessary blank squares.

Download the Pencil Case PDF (which contains the InDesign file, pictures and excel files as attachments).

4: SCRABBLE LETTERS

This was harder than the pencil case letters but employed many of its techniques such as:

• Requiring images to be made of the letters rather than using type-based letters
• Using a similar excel spreadsheet to break the names into 11 separate PDFs, with the only exception being that if a field was blank, it was to reference a picture called BLANK.PDF

The easiest part was the background which was just clip-art. The letters were made in a similar fashion to the last post, except that the letters deliberately had some space to the left and right of the letter. This will become apparent soon why this was done.

The excel file was essentially the same except for the addition of the following letters at the end of the formulas:

=UPPER(IF(ISTEXT(MID($A2,LEN($A2)-X,1)),MID($A2,LEN($A2)-X,1)&”.pdf”,“BLANK.PDF“))
=UPPER(IF(ISTEXT(MID($A2,LEN($A2)*1,1)),MID($A2,LEN($A2)*1,1)&”.pdf”,“BLANK.PDF”))

The addition of this type returns the result “BLANK.PDF” anytime there is no letter to show. This will be important.

Next, a centered textbox is placed above the clipart. A rectangle the size of the scrabble letters is then drawn, cut, and then pasted into the centered textbox as inline text – eleven times. From here, the data is called in via the Data Merge palette and the fields are dragged into position, but BEFORE preview is checked, there is a very important option which has to be selected in the Content Placement Options, namely that in Image Placement (fitting) that the option “Fit Frames to Images” is selected.

It is also important that before hitting preview, that PDFs imported into the art use the Art measurement. To make sure that this happens, import any PDF with the “show import options” on. Once the import options dialog box appears, make sure that the art measurement is used. Click ok, but then delete the picture. This should ensure that all future PDFs placed into the art use the Art box as the defining measurement.

From here, if Preview is checked, the names should now appear centered. Without the “Fit Frames to Images” option being checked, the letters would appear off-centre because of the blank rectangles to the left.

The final trick so that the letters appear to be sunken into the board was to draw a rectangle (no stroke or fill) in the area where the letters should be in the rack, and then cut the centered letters and “Paste Into” the rectangle which was just drawn.

Download the Scrabble Letters PDF (which contains the InDesign file, pictures and excel files as attachments).

Using Data Merge to Impose? It can do it, but…

…but i’d STRONGLY advise against it!

impositions should ALWAYS be prepared by the printer.

This article is really written to illustrate the power of InDesign’s Data Merge feature. See this article for more reasons why NOT to impose files for your printer or provider.

Data Merge can be used for so much more than simply adding someone’s name to a piece of direct mail, so using Data Merge to do something as powerful as page imposition is quite a task.

I’ve prepared five examples which are all downloadable PDFs with the attachments inside the PDFs. I won’t go into great detail but would recommend downloading the PDFs, saving the attachments, and reverse-engineering what I’ve done.

In most examples, the text files for the merge are typically made in Microsoft Excel unless stated otherwise. To also help people unfamiliar with Excel to make spreadsheets without too much frustration, note that:

• References to pictures must have an “@” sign in the header row. For Example:

however, when typing this in Excel, an error will occur. To overcome this error, type an apostrophe first. The cell will be correct after this.

• To easily have a number so that it has a file reference at the end without endless errors of #VALUE or #NAME appear, make sure that the numbers are actually numbers (not text) BUT in the formatting, make sure that this formatting is adopted for the cells which are to be picture references:

• * To make sure that no “missing picture” errors appear when making the data merge in InDesign, make sure that the data text file AND the links being referred to are in the same directory; or referred to with their full path. Having the links in the same directory as the text file ensures that if the folder is moved from one machine to another, that the links will still be accurate.

In every example, the books or tickets being imposed have been broken up into single pages. This can be done in two ways:

1) From Acrobat and Bridge, once a PDF is made

 

• select Extract Pages from the Document Menu of Acrobat

• make sure that the total amount of pages are extracted (in this example there are 128 pages) and that “Extract Pages as Separate Files” is ticked on, and click OK. A window will prompt for a folder to save these files in, make sure to put them in a new folder (nothing like cleaning up 128 files off of the desktop!)

• go to Bridge and navigate to the folder where the single page PDFs have been extracted. Select all of the documents and then select “Batch Rename…” from the Tools Menu of Bridge.

• In the New Filenames portion of the dialog box, make sure Sequence Number is selected, starting from the number 1, and then with the appropriate amount of digits for the amount of pages being extracted (there are 128 pages in the example, so three digits is appropriate) and click OK.

the PDFs will now be numbered 001-128.

2) From InDesign, using the Page Exporter Utility (PEU) Script by Scott Zanelli.

• Go to this site and download the script, making sure to read the instructions. This is a very powerful script which will extract not only as single page PDFs but also EPS or JPG, but read the instructions – everything to detail how to extract the pages appropriately are spelled out in the instructions.

So onto the Five Examples:

1) Printers pairs with no bleed.

This is the easiest one. It assumes a 128pp A4 size book will be prepared as A3 printers pairs for printing on a copier. To do this, i’ve made two A3 landscape pages in InDesign and each page has two placeholders for variable data images. The variable data itself references the pages by the filename given to each page number (e.g. page 14 would be 14.pdf).

2) To impose for Printers Pairs – with bleed.

Essentially similar to the printers pairs with no bleed, but a big exception is that the pages being referenced have bleed. To compensate for the spine so that the bleeds don’t overlap, the picture references for the data merge have been “Pasted Into” other frames so that only the bleed on top, bottom and foredge is visible.

3) To N-up one page to two (or three, four etc).

Similar to the printers pairs with no bleed, the only exception being is that the same picture references is used over again to n-up the pages as required (in the example, this is 2-up). Rather than use Excel to make the data for the Data Merge, a javascript called “Images to CSV” was used. To download the script and find more, go to this link.

4) For Cut & Stack impositions.

At the time of writing this piece, I truly thought this was an original idea and that I was the brainchild, but no, a you-tuber has beaten me to it. See that video here.

A cut and stack imposition is an imposition which generates pages which, when printed in a stack, are in the correct sequence so that once the stack is cut, will result in single page stacks in correct page sequences.

My method is effectively the same – create an InDesign file with however many placeholders are necessary (in the example, that is six) and in the Data Merge file, make sure that in Excel, the sequence numbers for the placeholders represents their position in InDesign.

5) For Burst Bound impositions.

Similar to the Cut and Stack imposition except that in this example, a 16pp conventional fold, sheetwork printed sheets are what is being merged here. This assumes that the 128pp book will be printed entirely in consecutive 16pp sections. It also uses the trick from the printers pairs with no bleed in that the page references are pasted into other frames to prevent the spines overlapping each other.

So, that’s using Data Merge to do impositions. But as I said before…

Don’t do it! This has been for demonstration purposes only! Impositions should ALWAYS be prepared by the printer.

Lineart scans: Multiply or overprint?

While i’m not sure about the behind-the-scenes technical differences between the two, but it would appear that there is a feature of multiply on lineart images which isn’t so great once a PDF is flattened.

Using the following demonstration, i’ve placed the same two images side by side – one greyscale, one lineart, then one applied with multiply and then one applied with overprint.

From here, i’ve exported to PDF with two major considerations: using Acrobat 4 compatibility and  downsampling CMYK and greyscale images.

Now, once the PDF is analysed using a third party plug-in Enfocus Pitstop, I can see things which Acrobat Professional would not normally tell me. In this instance, the greyscale images have been unaffected and essentially appear the same. However, the lineart image which had the multiply effect on it has dropped in resolution from 1200 DPI to 350 DPI; and it has gone from being a lineart image (1 bit per channel) to being a greyscale image (8 bits per channel).

So multiply has effectively flattened the lineart as a greyscale and compressed it based upon the compression settings for greyscale images. The lineart image set to overprint on the right is unchanged – it is still 1-bit at 1200 DPI.

What this means is that sharp, crisp lineart which has had a multiply effect applied to it (presumably to behave as an overprint) can render as not so sharp greyscales. This also means that rather than outputting as lineart, the image will be rendered as halftone dots.

If linearts have to appear as if they are overprinting, use the overprint function from the attributes panel.

Further to this, if a PDF is made using higher Acrobat compatibility settings and no downsampling is applied, it may appear that the PDF is fine in Enfocus Pitstop, but to print a PDF to final output it must ultimately be flattened at the RIP and the same thing will happen as in the example above.

Too close for comfort… and crop marks

When preparing PDFs for commercial printers via Adobe InDesign, be aware of how far away any crop marks generated by the export will be from the trim-size of the finished artwork.

It is not uncommon for printers to ask their clients to prepare PDFs to certain specifications. Some instruct their customers to use standard defaults such as PDF/X-3: 2002, some will have their own step-by-step instructions to the export dialog boxes, while others are more sophisticated and offer pre-saved joboptions files for clients to download and install.

Pre-saved joboptions files are my preference given that these settings supplied by printers to their customers are normally the same settings that the art department will use in-house, so will be fine. However, using the shipped defaults or following step by step instructions can be problematic as it is easy for one major check-box to be missed which can cause delays in the art department: the Marks and Bleeds dialog of the PDF export window.

The exports which ship with Adobe InDesign all have a crop offset of 2.117mm as default, (as shown above) which is not a lot. In the example above, none of the marks and bleeds have been turned on either, nor have the bleeds been set, yet this is how the defaults shipped with InDesign will appear.

It is not uncommon for a printer to ask a customer to submit a PDF with crop-marks on, but if a customer is making a PDF based on default settings and then changing the default values by simply clicking marks on or off without changing the offset values, then problems can occur later.

The issue comes about because crop marks which are too close either have to be removed on the PDF itself, or if the problem marks are left and and printed, may appear on the finished printed artwork. The position of the print cannot be guaranteed to be consistent on every sheet of paper (especially on digitally printed artwork) so variations in image position occur, so while the guillotine will be precise, the position of the crop marks from one sheet to another may not.

The example above shows the PDF file on the left created with only 1mm offset while Crop Marks, Bleed Marks, Registration Marks and Colour Bars are turned on. The result on the right is due to trimming innacuracy using the above PDF.

This doesn’t look like much of an issue on a DL flyer, but the consequences on a 400 page book would be much greater given the variations which can arise not just from the printing but also the folding, binding and then trimming.

To resolve the issue when native files were not supplied, printers will adopt the following options:

1. Ask the customer to resupply the PDF with greater crop offsets;
2. Leave the crops where they were and produce results similar to the one in the example;
3. Delete the marks using tools in Adobe Acrobat Professional, hoping that none of the actual art in the file is deleted as a consequence; or
4. Delete the marks using third party tools in Adobe Acrobat Professional such as Enfocus Pitstop Professional, which has more advanced selection and removal tools… but once again hope that none of the actual art in the file is deleted as a consequence.

If a printer chooses to adopt options 3 or 4, these are chargeable options which may harm the integrity of the file supplied to the printer as it has now been edited.

My own work recommends the applying Crop Marks and Page information only, having crop offsets of 5mm, and having bleeds of 5mm all around. This is illustrated in the image below.