: Choosing placement of colorbar and registration marks in illustrator In Illustrator's print dialog, I can choose trim marks and color bars, however it decides to place them outside of the print

@Shanna688

I think you may be confused about the die line and the placement of the printer's marks.

The die line is not printed. It is provided as a non-printing guide to the area to be preserved after cutting. The die line is used by the die-cutter in the design of the cutting die.

The die line is a non-printing layer.

Printer's marks are always inside the printing area. That's why they are called printer's marks. They provide standard artwork to be interpreted by the press operator. Do not generate your own as they are an industry standard and the artwork is tightly controlled.

I think what you meant to say is that the printer's marks are always outside the artboard/canvas area. It is the same as cut or fold marks which are outside the display area in the flat.

Printers marks are often printed around the edge of the press sheet to be unobtrusive but comprehensive enough to be used for quality assurance and colour fidelity.

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@Ravi4787994

There are a lot of options for setting up the color bars. I've included some examples below that would not be generated by Adobe's defaults.

Your exact color controls depend on:


Press operator preference
Press requirements
Project specifics


The smart approach: Let the printer set them up or at least provide them for you.

Here are a couple of very good overviews:

The Print Guide: The Color Bar

Printing Industries of America: Controlling Color "By the Numbers"











To get the Adobe standard marks in vector format

Save out a PDF file from Illustrator via File > Save a copy and check "All printer's marks" to get the whole enchilada.



I believe you still have to uncheck "Preserve Illustrator editing" so it doesn't do some weird magic to hide that stuff from you in Illustrator.



Then you can open the PDF in Illustrator and copy out all that press goodness.



Since that's pretty tough,

here's a PDF file that's ready to use.

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@Caterina889

The auto-generated marks can not be accessed. However, you can draw your own marks and create your own color bars and then simply not use the auto-generated marks. Just be certain to stroke/fill your custom marks with the proper "Registration" color when needed.

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