WD: How to Create Crop Marks with a PostScript Printer

MORE INFORMATION

Crop marks are short lines at the corners of a page that show where the outer edges of the paper should be trimmed. On a PostScript printer, you can use a PRINT field to create crop marks on a single page or on each page of a section or document.

How to Create Crop Marks on a Single Page

To create crop marks on a single page, follow these steps:

1. Position the insertion point on the page where you want crop marks to appear.
2. Press CTRL+F9 to insert a field. In the field brackets ({}), type the following:

   PRINT \p page ""

   Important: The quotation marks must be straight quotes, not smart quotes.
3. Between the quotation marks in the PRINT field, type or paste the PostScript code from the "PostScript Code" section later in this article.
4. Print the document to a PostScript printer.

How to Create Crop Marks on Each Page of a Section

To create crop marks on each page of a section, follow these steps:

1. Position the insertion point in the section where you want crop marks to appear.
2. From the View menu, choose Header and Footer (choose Header/Footer in Word 2.x). In Word 6.0, the header becomes active. In Word 2.x, select Header and then choose OK.
3. In the header, press CTRL+F9 to insert a field. In the field brackets ({}), type the following:

   PRINT \p page ""

   IMPORTANT: The quotation marks must be straight quotes, not smart quotes.
4. Between the quotation marks in the PRINT field, type or paste the PostScript code from the "PostScript Code" section below.
5. Print the document to a PostScript printer.

PostScript Code

Insert the following PostScript code as directed in Step 3 of the two preceding sections:

IMPORTANT: If you print the document on a non-PostScript printer, remove the PRINT field. If you do not remove this field, the PostScript code prints as text in your document.

-----Start of PostScript Code----(Do not type this line)---------

 % Crop Marks

 .5 setlinewidth
 /markl 9 def
 /whitel 4 def
 /inch {72 mul} def
 /top 1 inch def
 /bottom 1 inch def
 /left 1.25 inch def
 /right 1.25 inch def

 %horizontals

 left markl sub whitel sub wp$y top sub moveto markl 0 rlineto
 wp$x right sub left sub whitel 2 mul add 0 rmoveto markl 0 rlineto
 left markl sub whitel sub bottom moveto markl 0 rlineto
 wp$x right sub left sub whitel 2 mul add 0 rmoveto markl 0 rlineto

 %verticals

 left bottom markl sub whitel sub moveto 0 markl rlineto
 0 wp$y top sub bottom sub whitel 2 mul add rmoveto 0 markl rlineto
 wp$x right sub bottom markl sub whitel sub moveto 0 markl rlineto
 0 wp$y top sub bottom sub whitel 2 mul add rmoveto 0 markl rlineto
 stroke

-----End of PostScript Code----(Do not type this line)---------
				

How to Set the Position of the Crop Marks

The following lines of PostScript code determine the position of the crop marks on a page:

 /top 1 inch def
 /bottom 1 inch def
 /left 1.25 inch def
 /right 1.25 inch def
				

The PostScript code in the preceding section uses Word's default margin settings to position the crop marks. To change these settings, change measurements in the four lines above. For example, to place crop marks at 1.5 inches from each edge, change each measurement to 1.5, as shown below:

 /top 1.5 inch def
 /bottom 1.5 inch def
 /left 1.5 inch def
 /right 1.5 inch def