how do you crop to the document edges?

[l***@adobeforums.com]

Sometimes it does it, other times it wont and i cant tell why.

Say i have created something that goes over the edges of the size of the documents edges that I have set. When i save it as an AI, EPS, or PDF, it wont save the image as just the area within its borders, it always saves everything past it too. This is a problem because these are ads that i want to be able to just drag and drop this image into preset and sized areas on a booklet without having to resize each image individually

[S***@adobeforums.com]

Lark,

You need to create a clipping mask.

-Scott

[l***@adobeforums.com]

Then what is the purpose of setting the dimentions of the artboard which show the guidelines for it after you set them? It cant automatically cut the file to size of those dimentions?

[T***@adobeforums.com]

The crop is for export and PDF purposes...all you have to do to crop to artboard dimensions is Object>Crop Area>Make without having selected anything. The idea is you're deliverable is not going to be the native AI file, but something thereafter, and you can have nice cropped output while retaining all your 'working material' beyond the artboard.

[J***@adobeforums.com]

Understand, though, Crop Area does not actually crop anything. It just masks it. So if you have alot of stuff hanging over the Artboard onto your pasteboard, and you save as PDF with the crop set to the Artboard, the stuff is still there, just masked in a clipping path.

If you doubt this, open such a PDF in Acrobat. Get the Touch Up Object Tool and click around beyond the page edges. You'll see large bounding boxes being selected.

Or, open the PDF (saved without AI editability) in Illustrator. You'll find that it has a clipping path.

Illustrtor needs decent cutting tools to allow us to actually trim away unwanted parts with reasonable ease. FH has been able to do this forever.

JET

[S***@adobeforums.com]

Tim and JET,

Thanks for correcting me on this.

-Scott

[J***@adobeforums.com]

James,

Get the Touch Up Object Tool ...




How do you do that? I have Acrobat 5, but according to the Helpfile it should exist, only I cannot get access to it in any way (the .

Actually, I thought that saving/printing to PDF would always crop to the Artboard.

[H***@adobeforums.com]

Lark1000,

It would be helpful to know which version of AI you are using.

This is from the 12.0.1 readme file:

IMPORTANT: BOUNDING BOX CHANGE AS OF CS2
Adobe Illustrator CS2 has made a significant change in the way files appear in other applications when saved in Illustrator. The artboard (defined in the Document Setup dialog box, or when you create a new file) will crop off anything that extends beyond it. Legacy files (created in previous versions of Adobe Illustrator) are affected by this new behavior when you save that legacy file in Adobe Illustrator CS2. If you have artwork that extends beyond the edge of your artboard, either move the artwork so that it fits on the artboard or increase the size of the artboard in the Document Setup dialog box. This was an intentional change in the way that Illustrator saves files, and ensures compliancy with PDFX1a standards. This behavior is present in both Adobe Illustrator CS2 and the 12.0.1 update, and will not be changed to the “old” behavior in future versions of Adobe Illustrator.