You open the Crop Area Options dialog box by double-clicking the Crop Area tool. You can also specify many of these options in the Control panel when the Crop Area tool is active.

Preset

Specifies crop area dimensions. These presets set the ruler Pixel Aspect Ratio appropriately for the specified output.

Width and Height

Specifies the size of the crop area.

Constrain Proportions

Keeps the aspect ratio of the crop area intact if you manually resize the crop area.

X: and Y: Position

Specifies the position of the crop area according to Illustrator’s work area rulers. To view these rulers, choose View > Show Rulers.

Show Center Mark

Displays a point in the center of the crop area.

Show Cross Hairs

Displays cross lines through the center of each side of the crop area.

Show Video Safe Areas

Displays guides that represent the areas that fall inside the viewable area of video. You want to keep all text and art that must be viewable to users inside the video safe areas.

Show Screen Edge

Displays guides that represent the edge of the video screen.

Show Crop Area Rulers

Displays rulers around the crop area. The zero point of these rulers is in the upper-left corner, as with video rulers. The dimensions reflected are determined by the value in the Ruler Pixel Aspect Ratio box.

Ruler Pixel Aspect Ratio

Specifies the pixel aspect ratio used for the rulers.

Fade Region Outside Crop Area

Displays the area outside of the crop area a darker shade than the area inside the crop area when the Crop tool is active.

Update While Dragging

Keeps the area outside of the crop area darker as you drag to resize the crop area. If this is not selected, the outside area displays in the same color as inside the crop area while resizing.

Crop Areas

Indicates how many crop areas exist.