Flyers · Glossary
What are crop marks?
Crop marks, also called trim marks, are short thin lines printed just outside the corners of a design to show exactly where the sheet should be cut to its finished size. They sit beyond the trim and usually beyond the bleed, so they are removed during cutting and never appear on the finished piece.
When several pieces are printed on one large sheet, the person at the guillotine needs a visible reference for every cut. Crop marks are that reference, and whether a shop wants them in your file depends on how that shop works.
Nuwan Madhusanka · Co-founder
5 min read · Published
| Mark | What it looks like | What it tells the printer | Needed in your file? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crop or trim marks | Short lines at each corner, outside the page | Where to cut the finished size | Only if the shop asks |
| Bleed marks | Short lines further out than the crop marks | The outer limit of the bleed area | Rarely |
| Registration marks | A target of crossed circles in each colour | Whether the colour plates line up | No, added at the press |
| Colour bars | A strip of solid and tint patches | Ink density and colour consistency | No, added at the press |
| Page information | File name, date and plate details in small type | Which file and version is on the sheet | No, added at imposition |
Lines that show the cut
Picture a sheet with a flyer printed in the middle and white space around it. At each corner, just outside the design, two short lines meet at a right angle without touching the artwork. Line up a ruler with them and you are looking at the edge of the finished flyer. Vistaprint's guide defines crop marks as short lines at the edges of a print design indicating the desired print dimensions, positioned at the corners and aligned with the trim lines. Because they sit outside the trim, the guillotine removes them along with any bleed. Microsoft's Publisher help describes the same idea from the software side: turn on crop marks in the print settings and use them as guides when trimming paper to the publication size.
How they relate to bleed
Crop marks and bleed work as a pair but do different jobs. Bleed is extra artwork beyond the trim, commonly 3 millimetres, so that background colour reaches the edge even if the cut drifts slightly. Crop marks show where the intended cut is. A file with bleed but no crop marks leaves the printer to work out the trim from the document size; a file with crop marks but no bleed shows the cut clearly but risks a white hairline at the edge on a design with a coloured background. Most design software places the marks outside the bleed area with a small offset, so the lines never touch artwork that will remain visible after trimming, which is why the marks appear to float slightly away from the corner.
When a shop wants them and when it does not
Traditional offset printers and small print shops that trim by hand often ask for crop marks, because they give the operator a visible guide on every sheet. Many online and digital printers ask for the opposite: a PDF at the exact document size with bleed and no marks, because their software imposes the file onto the press sheet automatically and adds its own marks. Supplying marks to a shop that does not want them can make the file the wrong size or print the marks onto the finished piece. That is why the practical rule is to read the shop's file requirements before exporting. Registration marks and colour bars are a different matter; they belong to the press operator and are added during production, not by the designer.
Common mistakes
The first is drawing crop marks by hand inside the page area, so the lines end up printed on the finished flyer. The second is adding marks without bleed on a design whose background runs to the edge, which shows exactly where the white hairline will be. The third is sending a file with marks to an online printer whose template expects none, making the document larger than the ordered size. The fourth is placing marks so close to the corner that they overlap the bleed and get printed into the edge of the artwork. The fifth is confusing crop marks in print with cropping a photograph, which is a separate idea about choosing the visible part of an image.
Crop marks and the flyer builder
The flyer builder exports no crop marks, no bleed marks and no bleed. There are no CMYK or printer's mark options, and PDF, PNG and JPG exports are RGB files at exactly the page size, such as 2480 by 3508 pixels for an A4 page. Each PDF page is an image of the flyer, so the file opens and prints consistently. What a print shop does with it is straightforward: its prepress software places the page on the press sheet, adds the marks the operator needs and trims to the stated size. Tell the shop the finished size and that the file has no bleed or marks. If the design runs colour to the edge and the shop insists on bleed, discuss it before ordering rather than after the proof.
Questions people ask
Are crop marks and trim marks the same thing?
Yes. Crop marks, trim marks and cut marks all refer to the short lines that show where the finished piece is cut. Some software separates crop marks from bleed marks, which show the outer edge of the bleed area, but in everyday print shop language crop and trim mean the same mark.
How far from the page should crop marks sit?
Design software usually offsets them a few millimetres from the trim, outside the bleed, so they never touch the artwork. Common default offsets are around 3 to 6 millimetres, with the lines a few millimetres long and very thin. If the shop has a specification, use it rather than the software default.
Do I need crop marks for home printing?
Only if you plan to trim the pages yourself, for example printing two A6 cards on an A4 sheet. Then crop marks, or a light cutting guide outside the design, help line up a paper trimmer. For a normal A4 flyer printed on A4 paper there is nothing to trim, so no marks are needed.
What are registration marks used for?
On a press that prints each ink colour separately, registration marks are printed in every colour so the operator can see whether the plates line up. If they do not, the target looks doubled or fringed with colour. They are added by the printer during production and are not something a designer needs to put into a flyer file.
Will crop marks show on the finished print?
Not if everything is set up correctly, because they sit outside the trimmed area and are cut away. They show when marks are placed inside the page, when the trim drifts badly, or when a file with marks is printed at its full document size without trimming, which sometimes happens at copy shops.
How do I add crop marks when exporting a PDF?
In most desktop publishing software they are an option in the PDF or print export settings, usually under marks and bleeds, with separate tickboxes for crop marks, bleed marks and registration marks. If the tool you design in has no such option, supply the file at trim size and ask the shop to add marks during imposition.
Make one with flyers
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Create a flyer with OneCraftRelated questions
- What is trim size?What is trim size: the finished size of a printed piece after cutting. How it differs from bleed size and the safe area, with the numbers for A4 and A5 flyers.
- What is the safe area in print?What is the safe area in print: the zone inside the trim line where text and logos will not be cut off. Typical distances, how it relates to trim and bleed.
- What does print ready mean?What does print ready mean: a file a printer can put on press without fixing it first. The checklist of size, resolution, fonts, bleed and colour, item by item.
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .