Easy question = easy answer?

[Jyry webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Well,

so I'm pretty new with Freehand, at the mo running with MX and havin' a problem (not big, but anyway)...

I'm creating some cards and they are going to press quite soon and I was wondering about those few millimetres for cropping (I'm not also very good at english so I don't know how you guys called it), how should I do them to my works?

If my document size is 50x90 mm , I guess I have to make everything on it going out of borders for 2-5 mm's, am I right? Okay, but then when I've saved work in eps-format, distilled it to pdf and opened it with some program it's still 50x90 mm...and there's no extra space in that document left for press to crop those works! Right?
So, how to do that?
So I guess this is pretty silly question, but I really do need some help!
Okay Big Thanks!

JP

[Pappy]

Jyry,

If your printer will accept and can separate from Freehand documents (an I dont see why they cant), you can set your bleed in the document portion of the properties panel to whatever you need and there will be no need to build your crops and bleed at all. Crop marks are built into the separations that Freehand will deliver, just turn them on in the separations portion of the print dialog box. Voila, instant bleed and crop marks.

Now, if you are taking the page to PDF or to Photoshop or some other application, Sliders method will work correctly to get it there with the proper size to trim out right. If not, just allow Freehand to do it for you.

Pappy

[Jyry webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Big-o thanks guys!

So, Freehand page should be bigger than work itself and I guess it's pretty easy to work like that with guides etc.
Okay and if I'm right there's no need for cropmarks in that situation and about those millimeters for cropping I should ask from print?

Thanks anyway!

[James E. Talmage]

> So, Freehand page should be bigger than work itself

Not in my book. (pun intended ;-)

FH page size should be set up at trim size. Add a desired bleed value in
the Document Inspector. FH displays the bleed area as a dashed line
around the page. Very handy. FH exports and prints whatever is within
the bleed area, not just what is within the page.

As my projects more often than not have bleeds, it has long been my
practice to modify my defaults file by (among many other things) turning
on a .25" bleed for the default page and putting my own hairline
registration-colored trim marks in the bleed area. This way, they are
there whenever I start a new doc.

It is a simple matter to delete them and set the bleed to zero when I
don't need them. Their presence is especially handy for designing whole
document flats, because simple AltClickShiftDrag gives you a mark for
folds, additional trims, etc. I commonly make a 1 step blend between two
such marks, ungroup twice and Lock to give me a locked object to align
things to in the center of a panel, or the flap of a book cover, etc.

JET

[david gangwisch]

I'd make only one small alteration to JET's method. In FHMX (actually
beginning with FH10.0.1), the control in Prefs for setting the filename of
the template used for new documents is no longer just a simple text box. It
is now a dropdown that lists multiple files and has an associated browse
button.

I would recommend that you not delete the original templates but, instead,
save your new custom templates with a distinct filename. You would then
place the template in the same folder as the default templates and select it
in Prefs. Once the new template is selected, it will remain your default
until you either change it in Prefs or delete your preferences file.

You can find the location of the folder several ways. Perhaps the easiest is
to access Prefs, go to the Document section, and click the browse button,
"Select..." on Mac and "..." on Windows. You can use the resulting file
dialog to determine the path to your template folder.

David W Gangwisch
Software Design Engineer - FreeHand
Macromedia, Inc.


"James E. Talmage" <JET@IllustrationETC.com> wrote in message
news:3F74EA11.DEE558B6@IllustrationETC.com...

> > So, Freehand page should be bigger than work itself

>
> Not in my book. (pun intended ;-)
>
> FH page size should be set up at trim size. Add a desired bleed value in
> the Document Inspector. FH displays the bleed area as a dashed line
> around the page. Very handy. FH exports and prints whatever is within
> the bleed area, not just what is within the page.
>
> As my projects more often than not have bleeds, it has long been my
> practice to modify my defaults file by (among many other things) turning
> on a .25" bleed for the default page and putting my own hairline
> registration-colored trim marks in the bleed area. This way, they are
> there whenever I start a new doc.
>
> It is a simple matter to delete them and set the bleed to zero when I
> don't need them. Their presence is especially handy for designing whole
> document flats, because simple AltClickShiftDrag gives you a mark for
> folds, additional trims, etc. I commonly make a 1 step blend between two
> such marks, ungroup twice and Lock to give me a locked object to align
> things to in the center of a panel, or the flap of a book cover, etc.
>
> JET