Pitstop Crop Image to Media Box

[M@CK]

Hey guys, I'm trying to make an action for Pitstop that will crop Images and line art to the media box.
I got the Image part locked down with "Crop Images to Media box" Action, but cant find one to do the same with line art.
I need to remove the content or mask it for several different usage.

Can any one help, Maybe I overlooked an Action.

Thanks

 

[abc]

Did you try make mask?

 

[M@CK]

Yes i did, but to make a mask, you need an Object.
How do I get pitstop to draw a box the size and position on the trim box.
I tried Add background, bring to front, Change fill to off, Make mask, and i always end up with a blank page.
Must be something I'm doing wrong.

 

[abc]

Can you post a sample file so I can see what you are trying to achieve?
we can work backwards from there...

 

[M@CK]

So I have attached 2 PDF, one is what I would normally receive from a customer, the other is the desired result after the action.
I need to keep the white area around the artwork and just need to mask the marks and bleeds.

 

[M@CK]

Oops sorry !
The desired result PDF is not good Its got printer marks in it, here's a new one.

 

[Josephine]

Oops sorry !
The desired result PDF is not good Its got printer marks in it, here's a new one.

I would just do a global change...remove graphics...outside area!

 

[M@CK]

Hi Josephine, thanks for the insight.
The problem with global change is the it wont remove the bleed on images nor on vector background. It will only remove marks, slugs and annotations.
What I really need is to make a mask at the trim box to remove all excess data outside the box including bleed. Just haven't figured it out yet.

 

[[email protected]]

If all you want to do is to mask everything outside the trim box then the action list is:

Add object (rectangle, foreground, fill or stroke is not important, with the size of the media box)
Select all
Make mask

From the desired result I saw that the boxes were different, so you can continue setting the other boxes to the media box of course.

This does not physically remove the excess data, but is that really necessary? When there is lineart, removing excess data means that the paths have to be modified.

There is one downside: you have to specify the size of the trim box to create a mask of the correct size. That does not mean you have to edit the action list for every file. A more comfortable approach is to use Smart Preflight variables: you make those sizes variable and PitStop will prompt you for the values every time you run the action list.

If you want full automation, you can use Switch. Switch instructs PitStop Server to run the action list and it provides the values for the variables, in this case the horizontal and vertical sizes of the trim box of the PDF and the result will
always be correct.

 

[M@CK]

Thanks Freddy, this action can work, I was hopping for a more hands off but its very good.
One question, why wont pitstop bring to front the Add Background and then make the mask with that ...