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GlossaryPrinting your card

What Are Crop Marks? Trim Marks Explained

Crop marks, also called trim marks, are short printed lines at the corners of a design that show a printer where to cut. They sit outside the finished card area and are removed when the card is trimmed.

What They Show

Each mark is a thin line pointing at a corner of the finished card, lined up with where the edge will be. A person or a machine lines the cutter up on them. They are placed so they do not touch the artwork itself, because a mark printed on the card would be visible.

Crop Marks and Bleed Are Different Things

Crop marks say where to cut. Bleed is the extra artwork beyond that line. They are often confused because both live near the edge, but a file can have either without the other. Traditionally marks are placed in an extra margin outside the bleed, called the slug. A file can also keep the marks inside the bleed if the page size must not grow.

Do You Always Need Them?

No. Many printers cut by a trim box stored in the PDF, or from a template, and ask for no marks at all. Others want them for hand-checked jobs. The honest answer is to ask the printer. A file with marks is usually safe to send to one who does not need them, because the marks are trimmed away, as long as they stay clear of the card.

Marks Versus Trim Box

A PDF can also record the finished size as a TrimBox, a rectangle stored in the file that prepress software reads automatically. Marks are for people, and the TrimBox is for software. A print file with both can be cut by eye or by machine.

Frequently asked questions

Are crop marks and trim marks the same thing?

Yes. Both names describe the short corner lines that show where a printed sheet is to be cut.

Do crop marks appear on the finished card?

No. They sit outside the finished card area and are cut away when the card is trimmed.

Should I send a printer a file with crop marks?

Ask them. Many work from the trim box in the PDF and need none, but a file with marks is usually accepted because they are trimmed away.

Keep reading

Related terms

BleedBleed is the extra artwork that runs past the edge where a printed card will be cut, so that a blade landing slightly off the line still finds ink and not bare paper. It is usually 3 mm on every side, which makes a card with an 85.6 by 54 mm finished size a 91.6 by 60 mm file.Safe ZoneThe safe zone is the margin inside the cut line of a printed card where text and logos must stay clear, because cutting is never perfectly exact. It is the opposite of bleed: bleed runs outwards past the cut, while the safe zone holds important content back from it. A margin of 3 to 5 mm is typical.Print-Ready PDFA print-ready PDF is a file prepared so a printer can use it without changes: the right finished size, bleed on every side, text and images that will print cleanly, and page boxes that record where the cut falls. It is a PDF built for a press rather than for viewing on screen.Business Card DimensionsBusiness card dimensions vary by country: 3.5 by 2 inches (88.9 by 50.8 mm) in the United States and Canada, and about 85 by 55 mm across most of Europe. The international ID-1 size, 85.6 by 54 mm, is the same as a bank card and is the size used for the print file here.

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