Distilling Illustrator EPS files, Can I Crop?

[Bryan_Walton@adobeforums.com]

I'm trying to determine wether or not Distiller can process an EPS from Illust 11 or 12, and crop the resulting pdf to the Illust document settup.

Example: I'm working with a letter-size document settup in Illust, and I send the EPS to Disitller. I want the resulting pdf to be letter-size as well. But Distiller decides to include artwork residing off the pasteboard. This results in an oversized pdf that needs to be manually cropped down to the letter size.

I have tried changing the default Page Size in the PDF Settings-but this doesn't change anything. Does anybody know if this is an Illust. issue, or Distiller?

Any input greatly appreciated, Thanks!

[Jon_Bessant@adobeforums.com]

Generate a postscript file - the page width and height are then
controlled by you.

By the way - cropping a PDF will only change the Acrobat crop box - not
perform a destructive crop like people are acustomed to with
applications such as Adobe Photoshop ...

Jon

PS - you can also SAVE-AS a PDF from Illustrator ...

[Bryan_Walton@adobeforums.com]

Jon,

thanks for the response, and the tip on the "non-destructive" behavior of the crop feature.

Tried the Save-As with success. Thanks! Still, I'm tryiing to Distill the files as well.

I'm not sure how to get a postscript file from Illust. Do you mean an EPS?

Thanks Again,

Bryan

[Aandi_Inston@adobeforums.com]

>I'm not sure how to get a postscript file from Illust. Do you mean an EPS?

While EPS is a kind of PostScript, what people really mean when they
say "PostScript file" is printable PostScript.

Why not just print from Illustrator to Adobe PDF, in fact?

Or, indeed, have you examined saving as PDF from Illustrator?

Aandi Inston

[Bryan_Walton@adobeforums.com]

Aandi,

Yes, I have explored saving/printing pdfs from Illustrator, and this may in fact work fine. Right now our workflow would work better if we could just get the page cropping feature in disitller to work (as mentioned in my initial post). This is primarily because we are using alot of dynamic data to batch individual files from Illust.

I do see your point though, i.e. why not just use the PDF printer from illust to batch things.

Still, I'm trying to cause the least amount of disruption in what we have going.

Thanks for responding!

[Aandi_Inston@adobeforums.com]

> if we could just get the page cropping feature in disitller to work (as mentioned in my initial post).

I'm not sure what feature you mean. Distiller will either
(a) use its default page size, fixed,
or
(b) use the size given for the EPS when it was saved.

I don't know of any other choices - what am I missing?

Aandi Inston

[Bryan_Walton@adobeforums.com]

Aandi-

The "cropping feature"-sorry, poor choice of words. I'm actually just refering to the Adobe PDF Settings>Default Page Size values.

So, this is where my question lies b/c my PDF settings do indicate a default page size of 8.5 x 11, and the document setup in illust is also 8.5 x 11.

Yet, the resulting PDF (from distiller) is not "cropped" to this document settup size (meaning it's including any and all artwork or design items that occur outside of the pasteboard). This forces me to manually crop the viewable area to the 8.5 x 11 size.

I did get the result I was looking for when writing a PDF using the "Save-As"-the artwork that was off the pasteboard did not show, and the file was cropped exactly to the letter size as specified in the document setup. I just can't get distiller to give me the same result.

Is there possibly a PDF setting that I'm missing?

Bryan