Black only crop marks in Preps template

[epp3]

How can you make the crop marks in a template be black only?

We have a job that is running on an Indigo and is a combination of 4/c and black, 4 book ranging in size from 443 to 681 pages. Majority is black with 4/c images placed throughout.

I don't want to have click charges for crop marks on black pages.

Does anyone have a solution for this?

[dpcurry]

I think you'll have to manually create lines where the crop marks would be - if you do it that way, you can specify the color of the line as K only. You might be able to make it a Smart Mark, but I'm not sure what you'd use as the anchors to place them.

Alternatively, depending on your workflow, you could output the imposed job as PDF and then use PitStop to globally change the crop mark color.

[RobW]

epp, have you previewed the seps at the Indigo? I have a feeling that even though the crops are registration out of Preps, they'll print as Black only on those pages where the content is just Black. Maybe even run a range of those Black sheets independently, you'll know when it's running if there's more than 1 pass through the press.

Which Indigo are you using? On our 5000 I'm pretty sure it drops the extra colors out of Preps marks on Black only jobs.

[jerryd]

We run into this problem on jobs that go to our Indigo for black only jobs also. You can manually create a crop mark in Preps that is black only. What I do is export the imposition as a PDF either through Preps or in Prinergy. Open the PDF in Acrobat and using the Pitstop Actions use "Change crop marks to black" also check to be sure your slug line is not set at registration. Drop the new PDF at the Indigo.

I have brought up this issue with Kodak 2 years ago. Not sure if it has been addresses in version 6.

Jerry D'

[Bowner]

Preps 6 now provides the opportunity to select the color for crop marks via "Mark Color" button, the same way as for text, lines, etc.
Available are "All Separations", "Spot Color" or any of the process recipe.

[digital@sig-1.com]

What are you feeding the Indigo? PDFs? You can always use PitStop to turn it into a Grayscale. Does your Fiery allow this option?; if so, an application like Command WorkStation will let you set your file to Grayscale for only B&W click charges.