Crop Mark Offset

[AFY7]

My printer requires a minimum bleed of 0.125” for a magazine ad. He also specifies that if an ad is intended to bleed, crop marks must be applied with an offset of 0.250”. I interpret this to mean a crop mark must be 0.250" away from the actual cut.

1. What is the default offset of the crop mark from the cut in Affinity Publisher?
    
2. Can this offset be modified?

[Dan C]

Hi @AFY7,

Apologies for the delayed response here, from my understanding the crop marks by default are offset by 0.4mm (0.015748 inches).

On 6/23/2020 at 8:06 PM, AFY7 said:

Can this offset be modified?

There's unfortunately no option to modify this offset currently, my sincerest apologies. I'll move this thread to the Feature Requests section of the forums for our devs to see and consider!

[AFY7]

Dan,

Thanks for the information!

By examining my document, I came up with 1/32 inch. (Oops! I mean 1/32 inch to the bleed.) But it doesn't really matter. I think I can meet the printer's requirement for a 0.250" offset by making my bleed 0.250".

Love your software. Hope Affinity & Serif are doing well.

[eze]

Suggestion - Offset Setting like InDesign for Crop Marks (Distance from Crop marks to Trim Box)

Maybe I just haven't found the setting yet... but is there anything in Affinity publisher similar to the Export PDF setting for the Offset of the Crop marks (distance from edge of crop marks to the trim box location like in Adobe InDesign?)

If this is NOT available in Affinity Publisher it would be a very useful feature to add if possible please!

Looking forward to feedback on this....I see some replies above etc... but I see everything about those is from 2020. so I am hoping maybe this has been added or is in the works?!

Thank you so much!

[AFY7]

Eze,

I successfully met the printer’s requirements simply by increasing the bleed. Widening the bleed also moves the crop marks out. Here is part of the printer's requirements:

PRINT AD FILE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES • Press Optimized or PDF-X-1A PDFs are required. • If an ad is intended to bleed, crop marks must be applied with an offset of 0.250”; a minimum of 0.125” bleed beyond the trim is required.

The printer specified the bleed as a minimum.

[eze]

Ok that makes sense for a work-around for sure! Thank you very much AFY7!

Would be cool to see if the feature is still added in the export settings as well eventually.

Thanks again!

[mattchee]

I'm not really finding this workaround to work for me? Maybe it works if you need to offset the marks out way farther than the image bleed (I can see how that would work), but what about butting up against the image bleed:

For a project I'm working on the printer wants 0.125" bleed, and the crop marks offset by 0.125". When I export with the 0.125" bleed, the crop marks are offset further out than 0.125", something like 0.135". 

Honestly, this is the first time in my career that I've had a printer get so nitpicky about the crop mark placement, and I think they're making this requirement to circumvent the InDesign default of 0.0833 cutting into the bleed image - so it might not be a problem at all where it is (will see). 

But, that said, I think it would be a really nice feature to have the offset be adjustable. 

[Terentyev Publisher]

Yes, please, add this feature.

[wonderings]

On 8/2/2021 at 12:45 PM, mattchee said:

I'm not really finding this workaround to work for me? Maybe it works if you need to offset the marks out way farther than the image bleed (I can see how that would work), but what about butting up against the image bleed:

For a project I'm working on the printer wants 0.125" bleed, and the crop marks offset by 0.125". When I export with the 0.125" bleed, the crop marks are offset further out than 0.125", something like 0.135". 

Honestly, this is the first time in my career that I've had a printer get so nitpicky about the crop mark placement, and I think they're making this requirement to circumvent the InDesign default of 0.0833 cutting into the bleed image - so it might not be a problem at all where it is (will see). 

But, that said, I think it would be a really nice feature to have the offset be adjustable. 

I think they are definitely nit picking. I never really look at how far crop marks are offset. The only time it really causes concern is when a client has them touching and right on the cut edge. Giving more than the default in Indesign should be no issue. If they are simply taking your file and dropping into some sort of work flow like Apogee it may be the software looks for these specific settings and if not correct it shoots back an error.