Changing color of crop marks

[Rik Bratto]

I have finished designing a file in InDesign, for a front and back 8.5"x11" proposal covers, with bleeds. I have made a high-rez PDF. The print vendor called to request that I change the black default color of the crop marks to be PMS 8883 burgundy metallic. (The job prints in two colors, 8883 and 875) Here is my question, I did not know how to change the black crops within Acrobat, so I re-opened the file in Illustrator, used the direct select tool and changed the crop marks manually that way. I saved the same acrobat file and sent it along to the print vendor.

So, how do you actually change the crop marking colors in Acrobat? I am stumped.

[The Repro Kid]

The default Registration marks and Crop marks should print on every plate, regardless of the apparent color the viewer sees when opening the file. Your vendor is very unknowledgeable about printing if he does not understand this. Essentially, he completely wasted your time.

[DCurry]

Totally agree with Repro.

[Paul C]

Registration black is 100 100 100 100.

One of the classic mistakes is coloring something with that black (which cannot be deleted from the swatches palette). Every designer does it, hopefully only once.

That's why it prints on all the plates.

pbc

[The Repro Kid]

I think the original post mentions Acrobat default crop marks. I'm assuming the crops were generated when making the PDF, not hand made in InDesign. All marks generated when exporting to PDF will print on all plates.

As far as registration black, that is (was) a common practice for making your own registration marks back when Adobe products did not include a true Registration Color. People would make a swatch that was 100, 100, 100, 100, name it Registration and of course it looks black. But with a true Registration Color Swatch like the CS programs now have (and quark always had) the mark really has no color break down, it just prints on all plates, and it looks black. If it were really 100, 100, 100, 100, then it would not print on the PMS plates, but it does.

The appearance of Registration Color is black because traditionally when making mechanicals, all registration marks are made with black ink or Film Pos and all printing items on a plate or neg are either black or grayscale.

[Paul C]

Very interesting Repro. I have received several ad mats recently with a 100 100 100 100 mixture as the background on a flat file. Annoying to say the least.

pbc

[eugenetyson]

I agree with repro.

The printer should know that registration marks only print out on the plates that you say for it to print on.

If you were any good at scripting you could open the Crop marks.jsx file and change the colour there.

You should probably back up that script incase you mess up.

[Lukas Engqvist]

We sometimes send files to a subcontractor using an Indigo digital press. The price is dependant on press cycles (one cycle per colour). If printing a book and some pages are bw others in full colour then cropmarks must be in bw on the bw pages, otherwise the page is interpreted as a colour page, meaning that it will cost 4x the price.

It is possible to fix using pitstop or similar Acrobat plug in (changing registration colour to black only in that case).
If it is an odd job and u're stuck enfocus pitstop is a 15 day full version trial software that can be downloaded from www.enfocus.com.

(But I must say I am surprised at the reaction of the print vendor. If they want to be peculiar, then they should have the know how to fix it themselves :p)