Talk:PDF Boxes : mediabox, cropbox, bleedbox, trimbox, artbox

Should we archive http://www . prepressure.com /pdf/basics/page-boxes here ?
The PDF page boxes: MediaBox, CropBox, BleedBox, TrimBox & ArtBox

A PDF describes the content and appearance of one or more pages. The exact size of that page is not as straightforward as you might think. There can be up to 5 different descriptions in a PDF that relate to its size. These are called the page boxes:


 * The MediaBox is used to specify the width and height of the page. For the average user, this probably equals the actual page size. For prepress use, this is not the case as we prefer our pages to be defined slightly oversized so that we can see the bleed (Images or other elements touching an outer edge of a printed page need to extend beyond the edge of the paper to compensate for inaccuracies in trimming the page), the crop marks and useful information such as the file name or the date and time when the file was created. This means that PDF files used in graphic arts usually have a MediaBox which is larger then the trimmed page size. The MediaBox is the largest page box in a PDF. The other page boxes can equal the size of the MediaBox but they cannot be larger.
 * The CropBox defines the region to which the page contents are to be clipped. Acrobat uses this size for screen display and printing. For prepress use, the CropBox is pretty irrelevant. The GWG industry association recommends not to use the CropBox at all.
 * The BleedBox determines the region to which the page contents needs to be clipped when output in a production environment. Usually the BleedBox is 3 to 5 millimetres larger than the TrimBox. It is nice to know the size of the BleedBox but it isn’t that important in graphic arts. Most prepress systems allow you to define the amount of bleed yourself and ignore the BleedBox. By default the BleedBox equals the CropBox.
 * The TrimBox defines the intended dimensions of the finished page. Contrary to the CropBox, the TrimBox is very important because it defines the actual page size. The imposition programs and workflows that I know all use the TrimBox as the basis for positioning pages on a press sheet. By default the TrimBox equals the CropBox. When creating PDFs that are PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-3 compliant it is a requirement that the MediaBox, TrimBox and BleedBox are properly defined in the PDF.
 * The ArtBox is a bit of a special case. It can define a region within a page that is of special interest. It is rarely used by applications. One way in which it can be used is to handle ads: on a PDF of a page on which there is an advertisement, the ArtBox can define the size of that ad. This allows you to place that PDF on another page but only use the ad from that PDF.

How to see the presence and/or size of the page boxes

A PDF always has a MediaBox definition. All the other page boxes do not necessarily have to be present within the file.

If you crop pages in Adobe Acrobat 6 and later, the window that is shown displays the size of the various box sizes. Another option is to use the Preflight function in Acrobat Professional (version 6 and later). The pages boxes are shown in the Page information section.

There are a number of plug-ins that are a bit more user friendly than the Acrobat functions. I personally love the DocuBox plug-in which is a part of Agfa’s Apogee Prepress workflow. How to change page boxes

You can use the Crop Pages tool in Acrobat Professional to change the page boxes. A number of plug-ins offer more sophisticated control. Enfocus PitStop isn’t too bad but again I prefer the Agfa DocuBox plug-in. If you know about a good plug-in, add a comment to this page! Do I even need to worry about all these boxes?

In the past: YES. Older applications did not define the trim box properly, forcing most prepress operators to center pages and hope everything worked out fine (which it usually did, by the way).

Nowadays applications are PDF-aware enough to get things right from the start. Take Adobe InDesign for example:


 * BleedBox information is sourced from the bleed settings in the marks & bleeds section of the print dialog box.
 * The TrimBox is taken from the document setup.
 * The MediaBox size is defined by the media size to which you print. If the “paper”-size width and height are set to automatic, the MediaBox size will be equal to the BleedBox size.
 * The CropBox size is set to be the same as the Media size.

I want to see the finished trim size of a PDF

To view a PDF at it’s finished (trim) size, set the CropBox to match the TrimBox. Some systems do this by default. This has users who are not familiar with PDF worry if there is any bleed in the document. They do not realise that there may be information available which simply isn’t visible on-screen. Acrobat plug-ins such as Enfocus PitStop allow you to alternate the PDF view between TrimBox and MediaBox. Errors referring to the BBox

Within PDF files there is another box, the bounding box or BBox, that is used. The bounding box is a rectangular frame that determines the dimensions of an object (such as a graphic, font or pattern) that is placed inside a PDF document. As such, this box has nothing to do with the page boxes. Due to bugs in PDF creation or viewing tools, errors that refer to a BBox may pop up when an application processes a PDF. A typical example is ‘The Font “ArialMT” contains a bad /BBox’. 9 August 2013

48 Comments » 48 Responses to “The PDF page boxes: MediaBox, CropBox, BleedBox, TrimBox & ArtBox”

Brendan says: April 14, 2013 at 4:28 pm

Readers here may be interested in a pdf positioning, imposing and numbering application called PyxisImposed (pyxis.ie). Only metric measurements available, but may be able to solve some of the issues referred to above. Waz says: March 1, 2013 at 5:36 pm

Calling on your wisdom. At the moment I have to check that any artwork (jpg or pdf) I get has a 3mm bleed and a 3mm safety margin and so the easy thing to do is open up a new page in Adobe Illustrator at the required page size (say A5) with the 3mm bleed setting and paste the artwork into it and check visually using rulers.

Can you think of a way to do that online or on android (ie without illustrator) so I can check whilst on the move?

Long shot but thought I’d ask in case you can think of anything. lulajean says: January 24, 2012 at 5:36 pm

HI, Just looking for some help or a point in the right direction. I have a file w/dieline that is on a page with crop marks, but it is not centered. What I really want to do is center the art. I’d like to make the document size the size of the die plus .5 inch all the way around it. I was told that I need to use the enfocus crop tool to make it permanent. I click on that tool and am lost. Can anyone help? Thanks Peter Hovmand says: January 16, 2012 at 11:02 pm

Many thanks for this very clear and informative website! chars says: December 4, 2011 at 4:57 pm

Lil, Thanks for the info. I have been stumped for weeks on this. Help much appreciated. chars says: December 4, 2011 at 4:15 am

Hello,

I have a PDF that I need to fix the page size so a special watermarking a vendor applies on the bottom of it will display. Page size = 9.333 x 11.708 inches. It has been cropped to 8.500 x 10.875 inches. For some reason the cropped page is not being recognized. How do I get the page to be 8.500 x 10.875 and get rid of the larger setting? Thanks. Lilia says: December 4, 2011 at 6:23 am

When you use the Crop tool in Acrobat to resize a page it displays correctly in Acrobat, however when you place it into another application (eg InDesign) it loads the pdf displaying the original size.

When you use the Crop tool and then save the PDF, the cropping is applied like a mask… the dimension can be restored at any time.

To make the cropped size permanent… you need to save the page as am EPS file and redistill it.

Hope this is what you were looking for.



How to convert type3 font to type 1 or true type font? Is there is possible to change? golden says: July 2, 2011 at 1:08 pm

hi,nice work!i have a question about draw informations from a pdf.i want to crop key words and paragraph of the pdf to form a new pdf,this work is to substitute the job of paper cut by hand.would you tell me some tips to do this work?thank you very much! Lilia says: October 27, 2011 at 3:35 am

@ golden.

It seems to me like you want to redact information. > View > Toolbars > Redaction Mark for redaction – draws a box around selection. Apply redaction – makes the box permanent deleting any information it covers.

Check out Acrobat help for more info. divxdevil says: June 22, 2011 at 10:59 am

Is there any plugin for Acrobat Reader for showing trimbox values? Or is there any standalone application for getting trimbox size out from PDF? Laurens says: June 23, 2011 at 9:50 pm

To my knowledge Adobe Reader does not support plug-ins. Given that you are refering to this applicatio,n which can be downloaded for free, I assume you also don’t want to spend (much) money on an alternative solution. I gave the above mentioned Enfocus browser, which is also available as a free standalone app, a try. It can display the dimensions of all of the boxes but it takes some work to find them. In the browser hierarchy I had to use the path Root>Pages>Kids>[0]>Kids>[0]>Kids>[0]>TrimBox to get to the 4 coordinates defining the two opposite corners of that box. Keep in mind that in a multi-page PDF each page can have a different TrimBox definition. If you are comfortable with command line tools on a Windows or Linux system, you can download the Xpdf tools from http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/download.html. One of those tools has a really nice function to display all of the boxes. From a command prompt run ‘pdfinfo -box filename.pdf’ to get a list of the PDF properties and the offsets and dimensions of the MediaBox, CropBox, BleedBox, TrimBox and ArtBox.

There may be easier solutions to see all the boxes with free software but I haven’t found them yet. Oceanview says: October 13, 2011 at 9:54 pm

There is a new standalone tool “PdfBoxEditor” available on the mac AppStore. Exactly what i’ve been looking for. And at a really fair price. Arun says: April 8, 2011 at 7:06 am

hi, Where i can download Apogee docubox manager Laurens says: April 22, 2011 at 9:21 am

It isn’t available on-line but comes bundled with the Apogee Prepress software. Steve says: November 10, 2010 at 1:25 am

Lauren,

Great article. I keep trying to explain the use of these boxes to others, but after a couple of minutes I just watch their eyes roll to the back of their head. Now I can send them this link so they can understand why it is important to use software to properly set these boxes.

Regards, Steve steve says: August 27, 2010 at 7:52 am

if you are on using linux you can install the xpdf program which installs a utility called pdfinfo… you can run pdfinfo -box filename.pdf from console and it prints out the box info for the pdf. Mirsad says: March 25, 2010 at 7:40 am

For displaying the crop, media, trim, bleed boxes use… page geometry tool… its free and simple!

If you can not find it.. let me know! i can send it 2u Quentin says: January 21, 2010 at 9:48 am

Hi, Having a file produced by scanning, with a lot of blank and black borders, I would like to get DEFINITELY rid of them in order to decrease the file size. Crop, trim, and other boxed only afect display, not the actual images. How can I really crop the images ?

Please also reply on qdemaret@msn.com Thanks for your help

Again, great article. Quentin Dave says: January 20, 2010 at 6:55 pm

Great article and website. Anybody know if it is possible to display the boxes in Reader or Acrobat Standard? Acrobat Standard 6 that is. My company probably won’t upgrade to a newer version anytime soon ;P Laurens says: January 22, 2010 at 1:39 pm

I don’t know of any way of displaying the boxes in Acrobat 6 (which I admittedly used that long ago that I forgot everything about it). There might be some fairly cheap tools that can do this. One solution that I gave a brief try is the Enfocus Browser, a free plug-in that is compatible with Acrobat 6 and later. It can be found here: http://www.enfocus.com/product.php?id=4530. After you install this, open a document and click the ‘Browse Current Page’ icon. The window that pops up lists the boxes and displays their 0,0 coordinates and height and width. It is not as visual as showing the boxes onscreen, but hey: it is free and comes from a trusted source. Katie says: January 2, 2010 at 8:00 pm

I was able to manipulate the image by using Crop and Trim both on just the odd pages. The Even page still shows .623 crop but it does not show up when I view the pages. Katie says: January 2, 2010 at 7:40 pm

Is it possible to use the crop controls to adjust registration for back to front printing? Our printer is slightly off, so I’m trying to use the crop Odd pages to shift the image slightly on the paper to compensate. What puzzles me is that if I set the crop/trim to .0623 and then set to zero, when I open the Crop Pages again, it has reverted back to .0623. Steve says: November 10, 2010 at 1:21 am

Katie,

Typically your printer will allow adjustments for registration front to back. We use an EFI rip in front of our printer and have defined Hot Folders to allow for a shift front to back to help with registration.

In reality, we need to establish a “Paper Catalog” as each paper type will effect page registration. Once we have the paper catalog established, every normal run job should shift according to paper type, thus we no longer have to do any shift on the rip. Tim says: December 25, 2009 at 1:12 am

Netz, Laurens: MediaBox is indeed required. However contrary to this article, I have found a PDF with a cropbox larger than the mediabox:

/CropBox[0 0 595 842] /MediaBox[82.5 90 512.5 750] /TrimBox[82.5 90 512.5 750]

I guess this means it has no effect.

My question is: Which box does Adobe reader use to decide how much of the page to display. My guess would have been TrimBox, which defaults to the value of CropBox, which defaults to the value of MediaBox, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. Mikhail Kirsanov says: December 9, 2009 at 3:22 pm

If you have PDF with prepress cropmarks and want to get rid of it: 1. Open PDF in Acrobat Professional 2. Open Document -> Crop pages dialog 3. Select TrimBox from dropdown 4. Write down margin values in “Margin Controls” 5. Select CropBox from dropdown 6. Enter margin values in “Margin Controls” 7. Select “All” in page range 8. Click OK

Thanks for the article! Emily says: January 4, 2011 at 11:35 pm

this is exactly the answer i needed. thanks Mikhail!!!!!! Netz says: November 23, 2009 at 5:51 pm

Hi, I loaded a PDF file using Apache PDFbox jar. this PDF exists without any boxes defined (media, crop, etc). How can I tell the page dimensions? Thanks a lot. Laurens says: November 24, 2009 at 8:03 am

Every PDF I have ever seen had a Media Box. I haven’t checked the PDF spec from Adobe to see if this is actually mandatory. It might be a good idea if you look at those specifications (a free download from Adobe). Maybe you’re getting PDF files that are not up to spec. Frank Tol says: November 17, 2009 at 1:07 pm

As a bookprinter, we regularly receive updates of a PDF. Very often the trimbox of the one page that is new has a very different size. Are there ways to get a warning in the creation process or a tool that will automatically adjust the one page trimbox in line with the other pages? Laurens says: December 29, 2009 at 12:06 pm

Some prepress workflow systems can point out inconsistencies in the page boxes of all the PDF files of a job. I am not aware of any tools that can do this in the PDF creation phase. It also seems difficult to do since an application cannot know that for instance those 4 InDesign PDF exports created by 2 different designers are actually part of the same publication. Nothing stops a publisher from preflighting all their outgoing PDF files agains a fixed page size. Maybe other visitors to this page can point to possible solutions. Lorraine says: July 29, 2009 at 3:06 pm

There does not appear to be a way to set the art box when exporting a pdf from InDesign. In a pure pdf workflow, our equipment acknowledges trim box & crop box for easy bleed setup, but the art box is also recognized and clips the image to trim size. No options in Preferences that I can see to set the art box for all documents. Jim says: July 2, 2009 at 2:43 pm

Thanks for this great article.

I’m searching for a Unix utility to list PDF box sizes. Any recommedations?

Can the Art Box be printed from Acrobat or another utility or plugin? Rajesh Kumaran says: July 2, 2009 at 8:37 am

Hi, when I visit this web last year thing are not clear. Now it seem ok to understand preepress guys. Now I’m using docubox manager properly.

Thanks

Rajesh Kumaran Igor Oleynik says: May 20, 2009 at 2:14 am

Dear Colleagues:

Please help to resolve the prepress issue. I need to prodice all book files with a PDF/X-1a 2001 setting. When I placing this setting in Acrobat 9 befor distilling or re distilling a word or pdf file I very often receive an error message [Violation] Both TrimBoxes and ArtBoxes were found on the following > pages: and there is usually 1 problem for each page.

Please adivise is it possible to get rid of this problem changing the setting in Acrobat 9 or I need to run these files throung a PitStop to resolve this problems

Igor Oleynik Washington DC       Tom Benjey says: July 21, 2010 at 11:03 pm

I am getting the same mesages and don’t have a clue what they mean. Have you found out what the problem is yet? DingoDog says: November 17, 2008 at 8:53 am

a pdf having these box sizes:

Page size: 420 x 595 pts MediaBox: 0.00 0.00 420.00 595.00 CropBox: 0.00 0.00 420.00 595.00 BleedBox: 0.00 0.00 420.00 595.00 TrimBox: 0.00 0.00 420.00 595.00 ArtBox: 0.00 0.00 420.00 595.00

is wrong regard to trimbox? it needs to be corrected? defining the trimbox is possible in Linux? how? Laurens says: November 18, 2008 at 12:01 pm

It is perfectly normal that the trimbox has the same size as the page size. Usually the mediabox and bleedbox are bigger than the page size but if you are creating PDF files from a wordprocessor or other office application, it is normal that these applications aren’t aware of the concept of bleed. Qoppa PDF Studio runs on Linux and allows you to change the page boxes. I have never used the application myself and don’t know how good it is. Rajesh Kumaran says: November 7, 2008 at 7:48 pm

Hi, I have apogeex docubox manager. Can I create trim marks and bleeds with apogeex docubox in apdf file. Please tell me how? Regards Rajesh Laurens says: November 18, 2008 at 12:00 pm

about ApogeeX Docubox: I am also running it on my system and it is a great tool but you cannot use it to add trim marks. ApogeeX itself is capable of doing that, using for instance the border marks. Claire says: September 30, 2008 at 5:22 am

Is there any way to print a PDF from Acrobat Professional or Pitstop that shows all the boxes. I want to have a hard copy proof that shows the bleed box and Trim box so I can make sure all my bleeds are accounted for. Yes you can see all of it on screen but if you want to pass it around the office to get sign off, the screen doesn’t always work. Is there another plug in that can do this if the above can’t? NicholasPaul says: September 18, 2008 at 5:56 am

The only way to get Staples/Business Depot to print your job correctly, is to take is elsewhere. I have ‘never’ had a good experience at Staples. Each time I vowed to never return, then I needed a job done quickly and they were the only option. And every time they took that new job as another opportunity to wreck their own reputation. If it’s worth printing, it’s worth finding a real printer. Mike says: July 7, 2008 at 11:56 am

Thanks for the info. Let’s see if the Trimbox, plus specific instructions will allow Staples / Business Depot to print / trim my job correctly for me! Grateful user says: March 22, 2008 at 7:21 am

Thanks for this very clear, informative article! Frusterated User says: December 3, 2007 at 4:08 am

Why the fucking hell can’t I permanently and completely remove everything that lies outside one of these boxes?????? Is there any other way to arrive at the same result?????? Laurens says: December 8, 2007 at 11:58 am

You can do this with an Enfocus PitStop action list. Using this Acrobat Professional plug-in you can select all objects that are outside a selected page box and have them deleted. There may be other plug-ins that offer the same function but I only have PitStop at my disposal. Nazikus says: November 30, 2010 at 1:25 pm

After you’ve cropped the document (via CrobBox), Docoment->Examine Document, check “Deleted or Cropped content”, press remove found it says: December 14, 2011 at 4:42 pm

Making Crops Perment in Adobe Acrobat Pro 1.) Document – Crop – fix each page the way you want       2.) Document – Examine Documents – if you do not want to remove all items uncheck them – remove 3.) Save file       4.) Document – Crop – check all (on the right and then set to zero (on the left) in that order – ok        5.) Save file 6.) Document –OCR Document       7.) Save file