HOWTO: Get printer's marks and correct bleed sizes in PDFs output from Illustrator CS3
Jan 10 ’08
GRRRRR!
Sometimes stupid software bugs just burn my bu**.
For one of my clients, I designed a 8.5x11" flyer that's going to a real printer. It's a full-bleed piece, so the printer requested that I give them an eighth-inch bleed, with trim marks. I thought, "Oh. No worries. I'm using my brand-spanking-new-hot-off-the-presses copy of CS3, which will surely be able to handle this sort of thing. Well, you can see where this is going — it doesn't. If you make an 8.5x11" documentin Illustrator CS3, and then save it as a PDF with the appropriate bleed size and trim marks, you don't get what you wanted. Illustrator crops the document at the artboard limits, which are 8.5x11".
Some quick googling turned up a discussion of the problem, but not the solution I wanted.
But there is a work-around. I'll give you a hint: it doesn't involve CS3's new crop area tool.Read the rest …
