Marks

The Marks section lets you add printed marks to your output sheets — fold lines, crop marks, staple positions, and more. These are guides to help you cut, fold, and assemble your finished product.

The left side of the view shows a zoomable preview of the marks on the sheet; the right side has the settings for each mark type. Each mark type has a checkbox to enable or disable it. When enabled, its settings appear below. Some mark types are only available for certain imposition types.

Settings

Fold Marks

Lines that show you where to fold the paper.

Position — Where along the fold line the marks appear, i.e. whether you want them outside or inside the trim area. Marks inside the trim area will of course be visible on the final document.
Length — How long each mark is.
Offset — How far from the edge of the sheet the marks are drawn.
Colour — The colour of the marks.
Weight — The line thickness.
Dashed — Whether to draw the marks as dashed lines.

Fold marks are usually placed outside the trim. Obviously if you are not trimming the paper, that won’t be possible.

Centre Marks

Marks at the centre of the sheet, useful for alignment.

Position — Where the marks are placed, outside or inside the trim area.
Edges — Which edges to show marks on (available for imposition styles that have a binding edge).
Length — How long each mark is.
Offset — How far from the edge of the sheet the marks are drawn.
Colour — The colour of the marks.
Weight — The line thickness.

Crop Marks

Corner marks that show where to trim the paper.

Most imposition types have just one trim region. However some (such as multi-up booklet) have multiple trim regions on the same sheet.

Length — How long each mark is.
Offset — How far from the trim line the marks are drawn.
Colour — The colour of the marks.
Weight — The line thickness.
Dashed — Whether to draw the marks as dashed lines.

Cut Line

A line showing where to cut the sheet. Only available for the 8-page zine imposition type. By the nature of this cut mark, it will appear on your document.

Colour — The colour of the line.
Weight — The line thickness.
Dashed — Whether to draw the line as dashed.

Trim Border

A border drawn around the trim area.

Usually this isn’t desired. If you’re trimming to a specific location, and there’s a line drawn there, then any slight error in cutting may result in the line being visible on the finished page. However, if you are trimming by hand with a pair of scissors, this might be the lesser of two evils, and avoid you accidentally straying off course!

Colour — The colour of the border.
Weight — The line thickness.
Dashed — Whether to draw the border as dashed.

Staple Marks

Marks showing where to staple. Only available for saddle-stitch and multi-signature imposition types.

Show on — Which sheets get staple marks: Outside of outer sheet, Inside of centre spread, or All other pages.
Count — How many staple marks to draw along the spine.
Length — The length of each mark.
Edge Offset — How far from the spine edge the marks are drawn. Marks are equally spaced within the remaining region.
Style — Line or Dots.
Colour — The colour of the marks.
Weight / Dot Size — The line thickness or dot diameter, depending on the style.

Collating Marks

Small solid rectangles on the spine of each signature. Only available for the multi-signature imposition type.

Each signature’s mark sits a step lower than the last, so when you stack your folded signatures in order, the marks form a diagonal staircase down the spine. One glance tells you if a signature is missing (a gap), duplicated (two marks level with each other), or out of order (a broken diagonal).

Colour — The fill colour of the marks.

One thing to know: the spine is the bound edge, so collating marks are never trimmed off. In a case-bound book they disappear under the cover, but on an exposed-spine binding (coptic stitch, say) they’ll be visible on the finished object.

Hole Punch Marks

Marks showing where to punch holes for binding. Only available for the comb binding imposition type.

Style — The hole punch pattern.
Colour — The colour of the marks.
Weight — The line thickness.

The hole punch marks will match the locations of the holes as set in the Imposition Type screen.

View Options

Show Margins

The Show Margins checkbox (located underneath the preview) toggles whether trim and source margins are shown (as coloured dotted lines) on the preview. The margins can be useful to see where your pages will be placed, but you might want to hide them in order to see your printer’s marks without any distractions.