Challenges with imposition...

[YinYang5675]

Hi all,

I'm posting this on behalf of our pre-press manager. I'm more of a
front-end web developer and e-mail marketing guy myself, so please
forgive me if my query is a little vague or lacking in proper print
terminology.

We're utilizing the XMPie UProduce server through a 3rd party web-to-
print storefront software (InterlinkONE). We've been told that the
UProduce server cannot pick up crop marks from the uploaded InDesign
template. We've also been told that XMPie handles imposition, but that
it can be problematic.

Can anyone tell me 1. how to properly create the InDesign file so that
the UProduce server can pick up the crop marks (if that's possible) or
2. how to handle cropping if the UProduce server really cannot honor
the crop marks in the InDesign package file? Also, can anyone share
their experiences in using XMPie to produce impositioned files (as
opposed to impositioning at the rip stage)?

Thanks,

Randy

[couch]

Hi Randy,

You have two options:

a) make the InDesign document size larger and manually place the crop
marks in the document and ignore imposition with xmpie.

b) make the InDesign document size the actual size you want to create,
then use step and repeat with XMPie.

There are a couple tricks with the XMPie's non standard step and
repeat dialog:

1) everyone sees "draw cut marks" and thinks this is the length of the
cut mark, when it is actually, how far into the document do you want
to have the trim marks. (IE 0 = cut marks will appear at the actual
document size; 1mm = cut marks will appear 1mm into the document size
so finished size will be 2mm smaller than the indesign document size)

2) If you have bleed in your document (ie objects go over the edge of
the document in the InDesign file) then you want XMPie to take extra
space into consideration. You set this in the "advanced" area with the
bleed option. Following on from #1 if you set "bleed" to 2mm, and
"draw cut marks" to 2mm, then your trims will be set at the actual
InDesign document size, but will have 2mm bleed showing.

3) XMPie draws the trim marks from the outside edge of the sheet
inwards towards the document. The length of the trim lines will be the
same as the "margin" setting. By default the margin is very small -
you will have to enlarge the margin for the trim marks to show up.

[Joe Caldwell]

I am not sure about the crop marks. We use the xmpie crop mark settings.

I can tell you that we have used xmpie imposition for years without
any issues.

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[Dan Sideen]

Xmpie's step and repeat appears to have been designed by a programmer,
not a pre press person. (It's called "Step and Repeat" not Imposition!)
It's not very intuitive, but once you figure it out, it's workable for
simple impositions.

Be careful if you are doing two sided impositions. Getting front to back
aligned is tricky. Make sure you click "center on page" in the Step
and Repeat set up box, run a sample on your output device, and check it
on a light table.

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[ed kotnik]

The reason why the crops don't print is that they are outside the
document.

Couch has the best suggestions.

If you are looking for a quick workaround to what you are doing now:
1> export just the crop marks as an EPS file from InDesign
2> then place the EPS on the top most layer.

The EPS file will then be inside the page boundaries and it works how
you think it should. Make sure that you include enough bleed in the
Advanced tab to include the tick marks.

I usually use the crops in uProduce, but every now and again, I take
the easy way.

Cheers

[thomaus]

Or a third option:

c) make the InDesign document size the actual size you want to create,
then in uProduce, under Advanced Parameters, put in the X & Y bleed
you want (for example .125"). You end up with a print file that
includes the bleed and nothing else. Then take the output print files
into the imposition program (or RIP with imposition) to complete the
process.

We use this style for versioned print pieces generated out of uStore
that we process with the 'Process One Copy' action to send one copy to
the printer. The final quantity is sent via Order Details XML output.
We set up queues on our iGen RIPs to store the common impositions.

Another thing of note is that uProduce Step & Repeat will fail with
jobs based on InDesign files set up as Facing Pages.

[Michael Dobbins]

I have a situation where one of the products customized online through uStore and the resultant output PDF produced using uProduce needs to go into an impositioning tool for sheet fed printing (everything else on the store is done digitally, but they want sheetfed for this one product. We currently have Prinergy & Preps, when the output PDF from uProduce is brought into our sheetfed impo tool, the trimbox is not detected, causing the imposition to be off by the bleed amount. My prepress has confirmed there is no trimbox in the file and they had to recreate it. Is there a work-around or way to force the trimbox to be in the actual output PDF?

uProduce 4.6.2 outputting PDF with no trimbox going into Prep 5.3.3