Adding cut marks in InDesign

[dogbone]

I know this must be really simple but I can't work it out.

I've got three 99mmx210mm graphic containers in an A4 document.

I can only see how to add cut marks for the whole page but I need to add trim marks for the separate boxes. It's going to be single cut.

Can anyone help me out here.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Is this file going to press? Or are you trimming it out yourself? I'm not entirely sure why you would set the document up this way.

If it was me and it was going to press, I'd set up a new document that's 99x210 (DL -- sounds like a compliment slip) with 3mm bleed and put your 3 'graphic containers' on each page and let the printer worry about imposition.

If you're trimming the page yourself, then add your own trim marks (0.3pt) on guides external to the page off-set by 9pts or so...

 

[dogbone]

Yes it was going to press, the same job as the other thread.

My client is a printer he's just a small one man band with a heidelberg (sounds like a Western) , he sends his seps out to be made and I was going to send the file direct to his film guys.

I would have liked to set it up. I just thought, perhaps naively that there would be some way that InDesign could know that I had three files imposed on a sheet and would automatically put in all the cut marks.

In the end I just made the cut marks right across the file then added a while box on top. But then I noticed that the lines butted up too close so I put another thin white box (set to orange for illustration purposes) to offset it a bit.

It worked but it's pretty clumsy. There must be a better way.

 

[gernb]

another way to do this, if it's really necessary, is to set up a page the same size as your 'container.' Then, export the blank page to PDF with crops/bleeds. Import the PDF into your layout and position art accordingly. ID doesn't have a menu option to make crops as in Illustrator.

 

[Blue Velvet]

That's one nice thing about Quark. The ability to place single pages next to each other on a spread. Can't say I've spotted how to do this in InDesign 3 yet...

 

[HiRez]

That's one nice thing about Quark. The ability to place single pages next to each other on a spread. Can't say I've spotted how to do this in InDesign 3 yet...

Yeah, I don't think you can do that in InDesign (so they appear visually separated from the spine but still together side-by-side).

 

[Blue Velvet]

Yeah, I don't think you can do that in InDesign (so they appear visually separated from the spine but still together side-by-side).

So if you're doing a 6 page roll or gate-fold flyer in InDesign are you supposed to set up one large page and set guides? Seems odd to me... I haven't gone into a great amount of looking at it, though.

Quark is my main production tool but we're considering moving to InDesign at some point. Little things like this can make a difference.

 

[HiRez]

So if you're doing a 6 page roll or gate-fold flyer in InDesign are you supposed to set up one large page and set guides? Seems odd to me... I haven't gone into a great amount of looking at it, though.

Well you can have spreads of any number of pages (or a lot of pages, anyway), so you can have a foldout of 6 pages or whatever, and see it all as one continuous piece, as long as it's all in one line. If you want to do a double foldout type of thing where you have a 3x2 grid of pages all on one sheet, for example, I think then you'd probably have to go to one large page with guides, I dunno for sure though. Also, I believe all the pages in the document (and thus, in the spread) must be the same size. But what I was talking about is you can't see two pages next to each other that aren't in the same spread (they would appear on separate rows on the pasteboard), so it's just a visual thing that I haven't found to be a real problem for me.

 

[Blue Velvet]

What I'm talking about — as an example — is this, which takes all of a couple of seconds in Quark without the mess of stray pages that you get with a facing page document.

In InDesign there seems to be a bit of messing around in the Pages palette which I haven't quite figured out yet despite reading InDesign Help.

 

[HiRez]

In InDesign there seems to be a bit of messing around in the Pages palette which I haven't quite figured out yet despite reading InDesign

I think you can do what you're asking pretty easily:



It's still two spreads of 3 pages though — as I said you can create a spread of 6 pages but I think they'd all be in one straight line, not two rows of three pages. You turn off Allow Pages To Shuffle and then can just drag pages into or out of the spread. It does take a bit of diddling around in the Pages palette but I don't think it's too bad. Then again, I haven't had to do much of this sort of thing, so I should prolly shut up now and let someone who knows what they're talking about answer.