Master items not displaying on document pages

[BCDesigner]

Hi, I've placed crop/registration marks on the master pages of my document but they are not showing up in the main pages of the document – any suggestions?

Please understand the following:

– I only have one layer in the document

– these marks are in the slug area of the page
– they do show up on all A-Master pages but not on B-master pages

– the graphic is identical on the A-Master
– I have tried creating a new master yet they still do not appear

– this only happens on the left spread of the 2 pages

[Derek Cross]

Normally the printers marks are affixed to the document when you create the PDF (under the Marks and Bleed tab in the Export Adobe PDF panel).

[BCDesigner]

Hi Derek,

Thanks for your response, however I am creating CUSTOM trims within the document. These items are not showing up on the pages in question.

[Bill Silbert]

I was able to recreate your problem when I tried to make spreads out of a single page document using the A & B Master Pages you mentioned. If I created the document as Facing Pages the only problem with crops was on the first document page which would only consist of the right page of the Facing Pages Master. If you are set on using manual crops you can go this way and just add additional crops on the left side of page one and on the right side of the last page of the document. Or you could use automatic crops as was suggested above.

[BCDesigner]

Hi Bill – I'm glad I'm not going crazy. Unfortunately using automatic crops within InDesign DOES NOT solve the problem because I do need these specific crops and score marks to appear when the document is sent to print. The document is being sent to litho and not simply a PDF containing generic 'out-of-the-box' trims. InDesign's assumption one-size-fits all falls short with this. The only solution I can find is to go to each individual spread and recreate the trims...not an ideal process.

[Bill Silbert]

Just one other thoutgh then. You said that you're placing your crops within the slug area. Are you actually defining the slug area in the Document Setup dialog box. When I was testing your process I accidentally forgot to define the slug area and the crops didn't show at all on the document pages. When I went back and defined the slug area then the crops showed up on the document pages. By the way if you are drawing manual crops they should be drawn using the Registration color in the Swatch Panel so that they will show up on all plates when they are printed.

[Laubender]

Hi BCDesigner ,

can you post a download link to a problem document and IDML file using a download service like Dropbox?

I tried to recreate the error with my CS6 version of InDesign and failed. All is working fine on my side.

The document to test just needs one document page and all masters with your custom marks.

Some other thoughts:

Could it be that something on the masters or on the pages is obscuring your custom marks?

To rule out some issues with that you could add a new layer and drag all custom marks to that layer using the Layers panel.

Are the custom marks grouped?

And if so where is the center of the group?

On the left or on the right side of the spine?

What is your version of InDesign and your operating system?

Regards,
Uwe

[Bill Silbert]

Are you saying that you are drawing crop marks and registration marks manually in your master page? As Derek says crop marks and registration marks can be added for export as pdf or for printing in the Marks and Bleed tab in either the Export Adobe PDF or Print dialog boxes. There is really no need to be drawing them manually.