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Help Using Inkscape => Inkscape Beginners' Questions => Topic started by: juliamenou on May 24, 2018, 12:07:21 AM

Title: How to add crop marks
Post by: juliamenou on May 24, 2018, 12:07:21 AM
Hello!

I would like to send a work to a printer, and to do so, I have to add crop marks on the corners of my document. Could you tell me where we can add them?

Thank you!
Title: Re: How to add crop marks
Post by: Lazur on May 24, 2018, 11:09:10 PM
Hi.

Captain obvious here, crop marks are useful only when you will crop the print. That is, when you'd want an edge-to-edge print with no white borders. Meaning cropping marks are unnecessary if you only want to print regular graphic with a safe area (parts not closer to the paper's edge than a certain amount, like 2-5 mm).

If you explicitely need to trim the print -in case of a custom print size or edge to edge graphic-, you need a larger paper size to be printed than the final output -so you can trim the paper's edges off-.
If you are printing in the A series, there are matching paper sizes. For example for an A3 sized trimmed print there is an SRA3 paper size (SRA3 is 450 mm/320 mm, A3 is 420 mm/297 mm).

So before you are adding crop marks of any kind, in the preparation process consult with the printer if they have the uncut paper series or of which is their matching one size larger paper format.

Then you'd need to resize your document accordingly.
Still after that, you'd need to resize your graphic too so there is an area that you can trim off, crossing the crop marks you draw.

There is an extension to render print marks including crop marks in extensions/render I belive but you'd still have to perform the previously mentioned actions.

As an example, here is a document set up for printing:
(https://openclipart.org/image/2400px/svg_to_png/271073/szalakoota-lakoopark.png) (https://openclipart.org/detail/271073/szalakota-lakopark)

(Not sure if it was drawn in 90 or 96 dpi inkscape though)


Here (https://trillioncreative.com/differences-between-bleed-trim-safe-area-ads/) is a description elaborating more on trim/bleed/safe area.
Title: Re: How to add crop marks
Post by: brynn on May 26, 2018, 07:31:01 PM
Welcome to the forum!

Just to add an extra detail of what Lazur already said:  Extensions menu > Render > Layout > Print Marks

I also agree that asking the printer for more info would be a good idea.  It seems like printers often have their own particular preference for how they do things, and it's not the same across all printers that you might hire.  So it's best to get clarity from them.