There can only be one Crop Area in an Illustrator document. It is used to determine the printable boundaries of your artwork when you want the Trim of the art to be something other than your full page. To set up a Crop Area, draw a rectangle to the desired size and position, and go to Object > Crop Area > Make. This will set the Crop Area and automatically places (visible but non-printing) Crops into position.
On the other hand, multiple sets of Crop Marks can be set up within a single document. This is useful in setting up duplicates or altered versions of a design for printing. To set up Crops, draw a rectangle to the desired size and position, then go to Filter > Create > Crop Marks, and Crops will be drawn in position. The rectangle is still there but it will lose any Stroke or Fill. The Crops are not locked, so it’s easy to marquee across any unnecessary interior Crops to select and delete.
Tip provided by Jeff Witchel, Certified Adobe® Training Provider.
Author: jeff witchel
Jeff Witchel graduated from Pratt Institute in 1973 with a B.F.A. (Cum Laude) in Advertising Design and Visual Communications. He has been an award-winning advertising art director, writer, designer, illustrator, and TV producer ever since.
Before starting his own advertising agency in New Jersey, Jeff built his career at top New York ad agencies such as Young & Rubicam, Grey Advertising, and Wells, Rich, Greene. Over the years, he has created award-winning work for many clients including AT&T, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Jell-O Pudding, The Plaza Hotel, and Pfizer. His many prestigious awards include N.Y. Art Directors Club Gold Award, One Show Gold Award, N.J. Art Directors Club Award, multiple Andy Awards, Graphis Annual, numerous readership awards, plus an Emmy Award nomination.
Jeff is a self-taught computer artist with over 19 years of experience. His initial introduction to the computer was with PageMaker, but he switched to Quark 1.0 when it was first introduced in 1987. Having arrived on the desktop publishing scene so early, Jeff became the “go to” guy for answers when others started getting into computer graphics.
As an Adobe Certified Expert, he’s provided online support for Adobe and is now an Adobe Certified Training Provider for both Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Adobe InDesign CS2. Jeff is one of just a handful of Adobe Certified Instructors in the New York metropolitan area. He also is a Quark Certified Expert in QuarkXPress 6 as well as a master of Adobe Photoshop and related applications. He counts among his training clients ad agencies, design studios, magazines, illustrators, and photographers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
