How do you determine what trim and bleed was set as in PDF?

[JoeM]

A distributor in Brazil wants one of my ads to use in a mag there. He sends email stating it needs marks and encloses a PDF as example (but of course sends no specs). And of course he needs it right back so it looks like I can't get a spec from him in time.

Is there a way to determine what the actual marks were set as in the PDF (original DTP was InDesign)? I opened the PDF in Illustrator and set ruler to mm then placed guides and measured them but when I open the PDF and view the ruler the measurement is not the same. Can't seem to find anywhere in Acrobat PreFlight or Advanced PRint PRoduction where I can tell what they were set to.

Is it possible? TIA

[threeprong]

You can use the crop tool to crop the PDF to the trim marks and this should get you close to the original trim size.

Bleed could be determined the same way.

3P

[JoeM]

threeprong wrote:
You can use the crop tool to crop the PDF to the trim marks and this should get you close to the original trim size.

Bleed could be determined the same way.

3P

I was hoping it might be possible to get exact somehow since a mm is such a relatively small increment and I've found that the Brazilians, in general, can be somewhat prissy if they have to adjust or do any extra.

[laarree]

In the Document/Crop Pages dialog box in Acrobat Pro, the popup menu at the upper left (right below "Show all Boxes" gives you the option of looking at the CropBox, ArtBox, TrimBox, or BleedBox. Depending on what option you select, this will be reflected in the little caption below the thumbnail to the right, e.g. "Cropped page size: ..."

[macbeergeek2]

If you crop it at the crop marks, does the final trim size come close to a standard page size used in Brazil, such as A4?

[JoeM]

laarree wrote:
In the Document/Crop Pages dialog box in Acrobat Pro, the popup menu at the upper left (right below "Show all Boxes" gives you the option of looking at the CropBox, ArtBox, TrimBox, or BleedBox. Depending on what option you select, this will be reflected in the little caption below the thumbnail to the right, e.g. "Cropped page size: ..."

laarree, you are the man! Thanks a bunch!!

[laarree]

You're welcome, Joe. :-)

[JoeM]

macbeergeek2 wrote:
If you crop it at the crop marks, does the final trim size come close to a standard page size used in Brazil, such as A4?

They are close but no cigar. Looking in Acrobat where laarree mentioned they are set at 205 x 275 mm as opposed to the standard of 210 × 297 mm.

[laarree]

Magazines are a real hodge-podge of page trim sizes, specifications for bleed, etc. There is nothing predictable about them, and you definitely can't assume that they have any relation to paper sizes like A4 or letter-size. Usually magazines have spec pdf files or webpages to refer to for ads, but not always.

[Seacrest]

In my experience, if the creator of the PDF didn't include marks, then the file's bounding boxes are likely unreliable.