Cropping to trim marks

[nick_watts@adobeforums.com]

I am looking to find a way of creating PDFs through distiller that automatically crop to the trim marks when rasterised in photoshop, but not when opened in Acrobat. Better still, a way of converting existing PDFs created out of house, so that they take on this feature. I came across a PDF that has this feature and would like to know how it is done.
Can anyone help??

[Jon_Bessant@adobeforums.com]

Your workflow sounds odd? Why are you rasterising in Photoshop ... it
has no idea of page geometry and will turn every object into the fixed
resolution and colour space parameters you choose upon open?

Let us know some more ...

Cheers,

Jon

[nick_watts@adobeforums.com]

Hi Jon.
thanks for your response.
We are a marketing dept. of a magazine publishing company, and we take high resolution PDF files of our magazine covers (often created externally at different repro houses) with crop marks, bring them into photoshop, and optimise resolution before bringing into indesign documents. We do this so often i'm trying to find a way of automating this process (rasterize, crop to trim marks, reduce resolution) to save time.
Is easy enough to produce a batch psd action/droplet or an applescript for everything except the cropping to trim marks bit, which I wouldn't have neccesarily thought was possible had i not come across a PDF that does exactly that (opens normally in Acrobat, but crops trim marks when rasterized in psd) It was actually created through one of our servers but our IT dept. have no idea how it was done (?!) and haven't been much help.
Any thoughts? I could send you the PDF if you like?

[Mark_Larsen@adobeforums.com]

Nick, I use AppleScript to rasterize lots of PDF's in Photoshop. I also use it to create the postscript files in the first place so I know how much the mediabox is larger than the cropbox and can use resize canvas to remove the unwanted crops and bleed after rasterizing the file. I only have CS1 but the scripting guide for CS2 has the options in it's open as PDF to crop page to trimbox, bleedbox, etc. You have the option in Acrobat to view these first in preferences page display if you have not already set this. If your not using CS2 I would like to look at the PDF that works.

[nick_watts@adobeforums.com]

Hi Mark. Thanks for your comments.
I was going to look into this approach (unify all the pdf document sizes then have a script reduce the canvas size by a specified amount after rasterizing in PSD) but the problem is that the PDFs we need to rasterize are created at various different repro houses with their own workflows, so having say, a 10mm of document outside every trim mark on every PDF would be very hard to achieve.
Then I found this PDF (If you'd like to look at it, email me on [email]nick_watts@dennis.co.uk[/email] and i'll send it back)
obviously this PDF has been created with a preference that tells photoshop to crop to trim when rasterizing. I'd ideally like to create a script that is able to convert the pdfs we have to take on this preference.
Any ideas?

[Aandi_Inston@adobeforums.com]

The only things that could apply are the crop box, trim box, bleed box
and media box. You can compare all of these using Document > Crop
pages in Acrobat 7 (only).

Aandi Inston

[Mark_Larsen@adobeforums.com]

Nick, if you are CS1 try this open the PDF in crop page set to "Artbox" the green trim box will now change to the red artbox (not sure if I got the colours for these right) save file this will now open in PS without the crops & bleed by default. Works just fine on a handfull that i've just tested. I see no reason why you could not create batch sequence to perform this function before rasterizing. If this works for you too.

[nick_watts@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Mark (And Aandi)
Mark; I'm assuming you're using Acrobat 7 as well? The functionality under Acrobat 5 seems to be much more limited; i can crop using defined margins, but not to trim box etc.
sounds like i might need to upgrade?...

[Mark_Larsen@adobeforums.com]

Nick, the option that I was talking about is in Acrobat 6 (CS1) However I think this has been improved upon again in (CS2). An upgrade would be a good move IMO especially from the Acrobat point of view. It's the top reason in my request for upgrades from CS1.

[Jon_Bessant@adobeforums.com]

Been away - sorry for the delay ...

There are indeed ways of automating this - Gradual PowerSWITCH is one
example - although within Dennis Publishing, you're going to find an
AppleScript wizard (wink) ...

Many UK publishers are now using the above software for repurposing
content for upload to on-line services such as Amazon etc., etc.

Jon

[peter kleinheider]

Nick,

with pdfCorrect from callas software (an Acrobat Plug-in), this can be done very easy by defining a profile that sets the CropBox based on the TrimBox. To do it automatically, use the suggestions from Jon.

rgds

Peter

[nick_watts@adobeforums.com]

thanks for all your suggestions, extremely helpful!
I've put in a request for Acrobat 7 and will get some help putting an action script together that uses Acrobat 7 'crop to trimbox' feature. Watch this space...