Save PDF With No Margins?

[Scot_...@adobeforums.com]

Hello everyone!

I have Illustrator CS working now that I got my serial number. Thanks for the help on that issue.

I am doing a letter size document for a client. I send it to them in PDF. In the title bar, I have text with a nice feathered drop shadow, using transparency. In Illustrator 10, if I just saved that as a PDF using the Save As command, the text with the drop shadow would become a white box instead of being blended with the red background. But if I went to the Print dialog and saved as a PDF from there, the PDF would look fine, however you don't get the PDF options, but that was OK. In the print dialog, I had to set up a page setup profile with ZERO margins, so the PDF would print at full size, 8.5 x 11.

Got it?

So now I have Illustrator CS, and when I use the Save As command to save it as a PDF, it saves the transparency just fine now, without the white box, however it's saving the PDF a bit larger than 8.5 x 11, because my artwork bleeds over the edge of the page. I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to save this as a PDF and have it crop the file to the 8.5 X 11 size I have selected. Now if I try to go the Print dialog route, it saves the PDF with a margin no matter what I do. It basically is ignoring the page setup option I have selected. So right now, I can't figure out how to save my Illustrator file out as a clean 8.5 x 11 PDF.

Any ideas?

Thank you so much for your time!

Scot

[Mordy_...@adobeforums.com]

Scott, have you tried setting cropmarks around your page? PDF export will honor those.

Also, Illustrator CS now has full support for all of the functionality of PDF. As you may or may not know, there are several attributes for a PDF file. Every PDF file has something called an Artbox, a Trimbox and a Bleedbox.

Artbox is the total area covered by your art.
Trimbox is the size of the actual page.
Bleedbox is the bleed area (the part that extends past the trimbox).

Illustrator supports ALL of these now.

So create an Illustrator file with dimensions of 8.5 x 11, and draw some elements that bleed off the page. Don't create crop marks. Then save as a PDF -- in the Marks and Bleeds section of the Dialog, turn on Trim Marks and set a bleed (I used .25in). Back in the General panel, click the button to View PDF after saving (it saves time).

In Acrobat 6 Pro, you can open your preferences and check the Display Art, Trim and Bleed boxes option in the Page Layout panel. You'll then see that Acrobat highlights each of the areas in different colors.

:) Mordy

[Scot_...@adobeforums.com]

Mordy,

Thank you so much for your reply.

I have done what you said - turned on Trim marks and saved as a PDF. It's still saving all of the artwork that bleeds off the page, making the page a bit bigger than 8.5 x 11. The trim marks are there, visible in the PDF.

What I'm wanting to do is save this thing as a 8.5 x 11 PDF with no marks of any kind. Right now, it's ignoring my page size of 8.5 x 11 and saving all the artwork that bleeds off the page.

Thanks

[Doug...@adobeforums.com]

Draw an 8.5 x 11 rectangle directly over your page. With it selected, go to Crop Marks>Make. Now save as PDF. Does it clip your bleed in the PDF now?

[Scot_...@adobeforums.com]

Cool. Thanks a lot.

[Mordy_...@adobeforums.com]

If you have nothing at all selected, then when you choose Object > Cropmarks then it will automatically make crops around your page size.

:) Mordy

[Scot_...@adobeforums.com]

Bingo! That did it. Thank you so much.

Also, the white box around my transparent drop shadow was created by having JPEG compression in the PDF options. JPEG doesn't support it, obviously. Using ZIP works.

So I have to set my crop marks for each document, or is it usually set by default, but not in this case because it started in Illustrator 10?

Thank you so much!

Scot

[Doug...@adobeforums.com]

Exactly. My bad. What Mordy's saying is that you didn't even have to draw that rectangle because, in your case, you wanted the crop to be AT the page edges! Crop marks are made at the page edges if no other object is selected when you make them!