PDFs viewed with Preview have strange marks and lines

mangomango
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Something has changed with Preview on my system running Leopard. For some reason, most PDFs opened in Preview have strange lines in them. But if I open the PDFs with other apps like Adobe Reader, there are no lines.







Anyone know what these are, why Preview is displaying them, and how to get rid of them?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    karl kuehnkarl kuehn Posts: 756member
    Those are crop/registration marks. They are used when printing things at a print house to show where the cuts should go. They are also used when printing in color to help line up the different colors when they are not printed at the same time.
  • Reply 2 of 12
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    And more specifically, since Preview doesn't actually add registration marks you'd have to assume the documents you're looking at already included them, and that they just haven't been displayed in the past.
  • Reply 3 of 12
    mangomango Posts: 9member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by addabox View Post


    And more specifically, since Preview doesn't actually add registration marks you'd have to assume the documents you're looking at already included them, and that they just haven't been displayed in the past.



    How do I turn them off because Adobe Reader and other apps capable of reading PDFs don't display the crop marks? Only Preview shows them.
  • Reply 4 of 12
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    It may be that the other apps are automatically scaling your PDFs -- you could try some of the scale options in Preview-- zoom to fit or automatically scale to size-- to see if you that puts the crop marks outside of your viewable area.



    Just out of curiosity, what's the source of your PDFs?
  • Reply 5 of 12
    mangomango Posts: 9member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by addabox View Post


    It may be that the other apps are automatically scaling your PDFs -- you could try some of the scale options in Preview-- zoom to fit or automatically scale to size-- to see if you that puts the crop marks outside of your viewable area.



    Just out of curiosity, what's the source of your PDFs?



    A variety of sources, but here's an example:







    It's a wallet-sized PDF that's a free download. When opened in Preview on my system, I see crop marks, but not in other PDF apps.
  • Reply 6 of 12
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Hmmm..... I just downloaded that and I can't get it to show crop marks no matter what I do.



    What version of Preview are you running? And, I see the PDF was originally made in InDesign, so it's likely the original file included them.



    Is it possible you opened the file in InDesign or another Adobe imaging app and re-saved it, at some point? Or, you could try re-downloading that particular file and checking it again, just to narrow down the possibilities.
  • Reply 7 of 12
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    For instance, I can open the downloaded PDF in Illustrator, toggle the crop and registration marks in the save as dialogue box, then reopen that file in Preview and have it look like the image you've posted.
  • Reply 8 of 12
    karl kuehnkarl kuehn Posts: 756member
    Here is your solution:



    View -> PDF Display -> Crop Box
  • Reply 9 of 12
    mangomango Posts: 9member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Karl Kuehn View Post


    Here is your solution:



    View -> PDF Display -> Crop Box



    Ah, you're right. That fixes it. Interestingly, it seems as if opening certain PDFs for the first time switches this setting automatically.



    Thanks for your help.
  • Reply 10 of 12
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    So I'm curious why, when I downloaded that PDF and toggled on and off "crop box" it didn't seem to have any effect.
  • Reply 11 of 12
    mangomango Posts: 9member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by addabox View Post


    So I'm curious why, when I downloaded that PDF and toggled on and off "crop box" it didn't seem to have any effect.



    Dunno. Are you running Tiger or Leopard? I'm using Leopard.
  • Reply 12 of 12
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mango View Post


    Dunno. Are you running Tiger or Leopard? I'm using Leopard.



    Leopard.



    The crop box was my first though, so I started opening pdfs with it toggled on or off, plus the actual file you linked to, and I still haven't seen any crop or registration marks.



    Puzzling.
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