crop marks for pdf file

I m having trouble understanding/controlling the crop marks for pdf publishing. My page size is 21 x 28 cm. To print a catalogue at this size the printer requires the page size of the pdf file to be 22 x 29 (in other words .5 cm. larger all around), and to place the crop marks at 21 x 28. Is there any way to set this in thepdf export dialogue box? If i do nothing to the corel file ( meaning i keep the page size  at 28 x 21) and just set crop marks in the pdf dialogue, then when i check the document size in the pdf file (File/properties in acrobat reader) it says the page size is 23,537 x 30.536! Where do these numbers come from? How can i change it to be what the printer requires ( 22 x 29)? The printer is in Germany and their requirements are very exact and explicit. Is the only way to do this by manually creating crop marks within the corel file and changing my page size to 22 x 29?  Any help appreciated. thanks!

  • We print our own designs as well as cut everything manually We also print other "designers" files and I for one absolutely hate pdf files that include any "prepress markings" including crop marks. I have my own macro that makes specific crop marks that are useful for us. The ones in the pdf are more of an annoyance to me. I could explain why but it would be lengthy.
    I would import the pdf back into corel and see where the problem is.
    You could easily create your own macro to drop in your crop marks and then create your pdf without setting the "prepress" marks.
    • the page size is not the same than the trim box, art box, bleed box, etc.
      the strange value (23,537) is for convertion of inches to mm (default bleed is set to 3.175 mm instead 3 mm). But the crop box, art box, etc are always exact
      • No way to automatically do this.

        • impwriter said:
          Is the only way to do this by manually creating crop marks within the corel file and changing my page size to 22 x 29? 

          you could use Acrobat for this. if you want, send me the PDF to ariel.garaza@gmail.com and I will crop it for you

          • Thank you all for your help. The jump to a value of 23.537 from a 21 cm page width seems to be that Corel adds 0.5 inches to each edge of the page size when adding crop marks. The German printer wanted 0.5 cm. I know I can do this with acrobat (thank you for the offer, CorelMaster) but wanted to know if there was a way to set this in Corel itself.

            In the end it seems i won't need to do this - i have had contact with the printer and they said i don't have to add crop marks at all - Just increase the page size and they will automatically crop off the half cm. from each side.

            Thanks again
          • If you take Ariel up on his offer, export the PDF without crop marks and let him know whether there is any page offsets. It would be best to send both the PDF and the CDR file(s) should he experience any issues.

            I am surprised there are printers still in business not bothering with imposition software or using such automated processes that cannot deal with any PDF. Imposition software handles this sort of thing pretty automatically if one makes the templates.