In this article, you will learn
- which prerequisites are required for this Fixup, and
- how to apply this Fixup.
1. Introduction
The Fixup Crop to Visible Area is available in the Workflow. The purpose of this Fixup is to crop all pages of a Print Item to the visible area in order to remove additional unprinted margins in a file.
2. General
The Fixup Crop to Visible Area can be used when cropping a Print Item to the currently visible area. The option to ignore Crop Marks and use a safety margin is available.
You can find this Fixup on the tab Data Preparation of an Article, Order or Production Job by:
- entering the name of the Fixup in the area Filter,
- activating the option Page in the area Category,
- activating the option Crop in the area Action,
- activating the option All Pages, TrimBox, CropBox or Registration Marks in the area Property.
3. Description
This Fixup crops all pages to the visible content. Objects on hidden layers that are not visible in the Print Item are cropped by this Fixup but not removed. The TrimBox is adjusted to the visible Print Items. A safety margin can also be set. The user can also choose whether Crop Marks are considered during cropping.
3.1. Prerequisites and Functionality
For the Fixup to perform as intended, the following requirements must be met:
- Unprinted areas are outside the visible area.
- Print Items can optionally contain invisible elements or hidden layers.
- Crop Marks can be present optionally.
Figure 1: The dialog of the Fixup Crop to Visible Area
The following options are available for cropping to the visible area:
- Safety Margin [1] – determine how large the safety margin should be. For Variable Content [3], select the desired placeholder – Database Field or User-defined Field – from which the value for the safety margin should be retrieved.
- Ignore Crop Marks [2] – when this option is selected, Crop Marks are ignored and not taken into account when trimming.
3.2. Before/After
Use the sample file "Sample_Ebenen.pdf" to experiment with this function. There is an unprinted area around the file that is not expected in the print. It is therefore advisable to crop the Print Items/Article to the visible area.
After applying the Fixup, the file "Sample_Ebenen_End.pdf" is generated. The file has been cropped to the visible area with a safety margin of 3 mm.
Figure 2: Left: Original file; Right: Edited file in which the visible area was cropped with a safety margin of 3 mm
Article update: Workflow 1.20.0 – 07/2025