Placing an AI file with crops and bleeds?

[Cory]

this one has been bugging me for a while...

I have a business card in Illustrator, BC has bleeds.

Document size is 3.5X2, and crop marks are turned on..

when I try and place this file in indesign, I can import it to the crop marks, so it comes in as final trim size, but doesn't include any bleed.

is there anyway to import an AI file into indesign where the bounding box is the crop marks, but it includes bleeds?

I have tried all the various import options in indesign (bounding box/crop/bleed) and they all either crop to crop area and drop bleed, or include all elements in the page.

[DCurry]

Don't use Object>Crop Area to make the crop marks to the page. Instead, create a no fill/no stroke box the same size as the trim (3.5x2), place it at the zero coordinates and go to Filter>Create>Crop Marks. This makes crops to the art and for some reason they'll show up when placed in ID.

[pcmodem]

The problem is that InDesign only sees the Document Size of the Illustrator AI file when imported. I think if you turn on the Import options you might have some luck with getting it to place correctly.

NOTE: InDesign does not actually place the Illustrator file. It places the PDF that is embeded into the ai file.

Brian Cupp

[mattbeals]

Here's what to do:

Define the crop area, 3.5 x 2, by drawing a no-fill/no-stroke frame, duplicate that box, then choose crop area

Then select the second box, expand it by the bleed amount, if necessary select all and use the expanded box as a mask to fit all the art witin

Save as Illustrator file, not as an EPS

Place in InDesign using the "show options" button

Import based on "media box"

Because there is no facility to define a bleed blox in Illustrator, InDesign is forced to see the page (by default) as what is defined in the AI file as the trim box. Which in the instance above is inaccurate because we have an object that exceeds the croped area. So when you import based on the media box you get the full area. Which is again flawed, because that box that exceeds the trim area should be part of the art box. Rather than the way it handles it if you only have "foo" in the middle of the page at 8 points which is to place only "foo" in the area it occupies.

Make sense? I hope I explained it well enough...

[pcmodem]

You could also enlarge your Illustrator document to 3.75 x 2.25. This would take into account the 1/8 inch bleed on all sides and you would not have to do anything else within InDesign to get it to work.

Brian Cupp