Illustrator

Create, edit, and delete crop areas

The crop area sets the position of the printer’s marks on your document and defines the exportable boundaries of the artwork. By default, Illustrator crops artwork to the boundaries of the artboard, which you specify when you select a document profile in the New Document dialog box. However, you can choose to crop your artwork to a preset crop area or to a custom crop area that you define.

You can create multiple crop areas for your document, but only one crop area can be active at a time. When you have multiple crop areas defined, you can view them all by selecting the Crop tool and pressing Alt. Each crop area is numbered for easy reference. You can edit or delete a crop area at any time, and you can specify different crop areas each time you print or export.

Crop area boundaries are represented by a dashed line surrounding the artwork—areas outside of the crop area appear dimmed while the Crop Area tool is active. You can also choose to display a center mark, cross hairs, video safe and screen edge markers, and rulers around the crop area.

To see a video on using the Crop Area tool, see www.adobe.com/go/vid0213.

Define a single crop area

  1. Do one of the following:

    • To define a custom crop area using the Crop Area tool, select the Crop Area tool and drag in the work area to define the crop area.

    • To use a preset crop area, double-click the Crop Area tool, select a preset for the crop area size in the Crop Area Options dialog box, and click OK. Drag the crop area to position it where you want.

    If you want the artwork to contain a bleed, make sure that there’s enough artwork beyond the crop area rectangle to accommodate the bleed.

  2. To commit the crop area and exit the crop-editing mode, click a different tool in the Tools panel.

Define and view additional crop areas

 Select the Crop Area tool, and then do any of the following:

  • To create a new crop area, hold down Alt and drag. Each crop area has a unique number in the upper-left corner.

  • To view all crop areas, press Alt.

  • To set a crop area as the active crop area, hold down Alt and click the crop area you want active.

  • To rotate between crop areas, press Alt and click an arrow key.

Delete a crop area

  Select the Crop Area tool, and do one of the following:

  • To delete the active crop area, click Delete in the Control panel.

  • To delete one of multiple crop areas, hold down Alt to view all existing crop areas, and click the Delete icon  in the upper-right corner of the crop area you want to delete.

  • To delete all crop areas, click Delete All in the Control panel or press Alt+Delete.

Edit or move a crop area

 Select the Crop Area tool, and do one of the following:

  • To edit the crop area, position the pointer on an edge or corner of the crop area, and, when the cursor changes to a double-sided arrow, drag to adjust. Or, specify new Width and Height values in the Control panel.

  • To move the crop area, position the pointer in the middle of the crop area and when the cursor changes to a four-sided arrow drag it. Or you can select it and press an arrow key (press Shift+arrow key to move in 10 point increments), or specify new X and Y values in the Control panel.