Impose Editor > Marks > Marks
Availability: All Versions
The Workflow offers a wide range of Marks that can be added to your print productions as well as for Cutting tools. Learn more in this article:
- What Marks are
- How to add and delete Marks in the Impose Editor
1. Background Information
When you prepare Print Items for printing in the Impose Editor, you can add a variety of common Marks. These Marks help the printer determine where to cut or place the printed material. The Marks available in the Workflow are based on scalable vector graphics (SVG) and can be adjusted according to your needs.
All Impose Modes support the addition of Marks, and you can find a predefined list of common Marks for various types of printing needs. We also can add Marks which enable the use of Cutters such as; Zünd Cutter, SEI Labelmaster, etc. and can adjust them according to the manufacturers specifications. In the Impose Editor you will find all available Marks [3] under the Marks tab [1], Cutting Devices are located under the Finishing tab [2].
General information about the Impose Editor, Impose Modes, etc can be found in the articles:
Figure 1: An overview of the Impose Editor with the Marks tab selected.
The handling of Marks was implemented to create a very flexible solution for printing marks. The following description will illustrate this concept in more detail.
- Multiple use of a single Mark type: The same Mark can be used several times in an imposition. It is probably also clear that different Marks can be applied in the Impose Editor.
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Mark types: Different Mark types are available for selection. By default we offer:
- Three types of Center Marks
- Three types of Corner Marks
- Five additional types of Marks - CropMarks, Dashed Frame, Rectangle, Registration and Sphere.
Figure 2: Below we see an Illustration of the available Marks in the Impose Editor.
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Flexible Origin: Marks can be positioned at different starting points. Not all starting points can be used, depending on the Impose Mode selected. In principle, the following options are available:
- Per Print Item – The Mark is applied to each individual Print Item.
- Per Row – The Mark is applied per Row of Print Items.
- Print Items – The Mark is applied to an invisible rectangle that surrounds the grouped Print Items.
- Artboard – The Mark is applied and aligned to the Artboard.
- Imposition – The Mark is applied to the entire Imposition.
- Flexible reference point: Marks can be set to selected reference points. In most cases, all nine positions - top-left, top-center, top-right, center-left, center-middle, center-right, bottom-left, bottom-center and bottom-right – are available.
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Flexible Position: Marks can be set to the different positions. Depending on the selected Impose Mode, the following positions are available:
- ImageBox – Describes the End Format (trimmed size).
- ImageBox + Bleed – Describes the Production Format.
- Overlap – Describes the additional area needed for gluing individual tiles.
- Printed Overlap – Describes the printed area of the Overlap.
All information on the X-offset and Y-offset thus refers to the selected position.
Figure 3: Section for selecting the Origin, Reference Point (Set to) and Position from the Marks settings.
- Flexible Dimensions: All Marks can be adjusted according to the size of Mark needed.
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Flexible Color Settings: Depending on the Mark selected, a Mark can consist of contours and/or a surface. Both types of objects can be colored separately. The user can determine which color the object should have. The following options are available:
- CMYK Color Values – The color value can be set by entering CMYK values.
- System-wide Spot Colors – The color value can be set to a system-wide defined Spot Color in the Workflow.
- SVG Values – The color value is determined by the color value defined in the SVG file.
- None – No color will be applied to the selected Mark.
- User-defined Marks: Since all Marks are based on SVG objects it is very easy to save a custom Mark as an SVG and use it in the Workflow.
Figure 4: Below we see a user-defined SVG Mark in the selection list of the Mark settings area.
2. Adding and deleting Marks
Marks can be applied using the Impose Editor or by selecting an Impose Template using Force Print or a Hotfolder.
In the Impose Editor, Marks can be added by selecting a Mark under the Marks drop-down list [7] under the Marks [4] tab, or under the Marks [6] tab of the Sheet Configuration dialog and under the Cutter Devices [8] settings area under the Finishing [5] tab.
Figure 5: There are three different areas where the user can add Marks to the imposition.
2.1. Add Marks
Proceed as follows to add a Mark:
- Click on the Marks tab [9] or open the Sheet Configuration dialog and select the Marks tab [10].
- In both examples a drop-down menu [11] [12] is available where you can select the desired Mark.
Figure 6: Selecting a Mark is easy when using either the Marks drop-down list or the Sheet Configuration dialog.
- Select your desired Mark, which will be immediately applied to the imposition.
- If you want to add additional Marks, repeat the last step.
- Mark attributes such as position, dimensions, color, etc., can be set under the parameters section of the Mark settings. Parameters and in depth Mark settings are discussed in more detail in this article Mark Parameters.
Changing existing Marks
You cannot directly change the Mark that you have added to your imposition, you can only add new Marks and delete the old Marks that are no longer needed.
2.2. Deleting Marks
Proceed as follows to delete a Mark:
- Click on the Marks tab [13] or open the Sheet Configuration dialog and select the Marks tab [14].
- In the Marks settings area all currently used Marks are displayed with the corresponding parameters per Mark.
- You can delete the Mark by clicking on the X symbol [15].
- In the Sheet Configuration dialog one tab per Mark is displayed for each applied Mark.
- You can delete the Mark by clicking on the X symbol [16].
Figure 7: The Mark can be deleted by clicking on the X-symbol next to the Mark name either in the Marks tab or using the Sheet Configuration dialog.
Undoing deleted Marks
If you have unintentionally deleted a Mark, you cannot reapply the Mark by using the Undo command. If this is the case, you must select the Mark again and reenter the desired settings.