Crop Marks In Adobe Illustrator

If you’re building mechanicals in Adobe Illustrator, you’ll want to use the “Crop Marks” filter to get precise crop marks.

Make a new Illustrator file large enough to accommodate the trim size of your mechanical and about 1.5″ all of the way around. Use the rectangle tool to draw a shape in the exact size you would like the crop marks to trim off.

With the shape selected, go up to the “Filter” menu, select “Create”, then “Crop Marks”.

This filter will create crop marks that are precise and made with the registration colors. You can also create bleed and live area crop marks by duplicating your original shape and changing the size to the correct specifications needed for your layout.