Word Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 26 Put Crop Marks on a Page

Commercial print shops usually require crop
marks for custom-sized print pieces. This hack shows you how to
include these important guides in a Word document.

With its improved graphics and typography features, many individuals and
small businesses rely on Word as a standalone desktop publishing
program, especially as the price of full-featured programs such as
InDesign remains high.

Word does a fair job of handling layout tasks, but it still operates
primarily as a word processor. It also lacks a few features essential
for preparing printer-ready documents, such as the ability to insert
crop marks.

Printers (the trade, not the device) use crop marks when trimming
paper to a particular size. Figure 3-50 shows a
document with crop marks. These are most often used when the final
printed piece will have smaller dimensions than a standard paper
size, such as letter. It's much easier and cheaper
to print a document using a standard paper size and trim it afterward
than to print directly on paper that's unusually
sized.

Figure 3-50. A PDF of a document that includes crop marks

To create crop marks in a Word document, you can use the seldom-used
PRINT field, discussed in [Hack #24] .

3.14.1 The Field Code

To see how a PRINT field can
put crop marks on a page, open or
create a single-page document. Next, put your cursor anywhere on the
page and press Ctrl-F9 to insert an empty field at the insertion
point.

With your cursor still between the field braces, type the following:

PRINT \p page "
% Crop Marks
.5 setlinewidth
% bottom left
72 88 moveto
72 52 lineto
70 90 moveto
34 90 lineto
% top left
70 720 moveto
34 720 lineto
72 722 moveto
72 758 lineto
% top right
522 722 moveto
522 758 lineto
524 720 moveto
560 720 lineto
% bottom right
522 88 moveto
522 52 lineto
524 90 moveto
560 90 lineto
stroke
"

The PostScript instructions are divided into four main parts, one for
each of the four corners of the document where crop marks will be
inserted. Each moveto, lineto
pair corresponds to one of the eight lines needed for a full set of
crop marks (two perpendicular lines in each corner of the document).

After you've created the PRINT
field, print your document to file [Hack #23]
to save it as a PostScript file. If you have a PostScript printer,
when you print the document, it will have crop marks like the ones
shown in Figure 3-50.

If you print to a non-PostScript printer, the PostScript instructions will appear as text within the document.

These crop marks correspond to a 1-inch top and bottom margin and a
1.25-inch left and right margin. To accommodate different margins,
adjust the PostScript instructions accordingly.

To print crop marks on every page in a document, put the PRINT field in the document header.

3.14.2 Hacking the Hack

The PostScript code shown in the previous section works if
you're working with Word's default
margins, but if you want crop marks on a page with different margins,
you need to work out the new coordinates. As much fun as a flashback
to high-school geometry might be, it's better to
work out the details once and then use a macro to adjust the
coordinates for different margins.

The following code creates a PRINT field with the
correct coordinates based on a document's margins.
The field is placed in the header of the section where the cursor is
currently located. In most cases, that puts crop marks on every page
of the document, though if you've explicitly defined
multiple sections with different headers, you may need to adjust the
macro to get the desired results.

Place these five procedures in the template of your choice [Hack #50]
and run the main PlaceCropmarks procedure from the
ToolsMacroMacros dialog or by putting a button
for it on a menu or toolbar [Hack #1] :

Sub PlaceCropmarks( )
Dim sngLeft As Single
Dim sngRight As Single
Dim sngTop As Single
Dim sngBottom As Single
Dim sPrintField As String
Dim rng As Range
With ActiveDocument.PageSetup
sngLeft = .LeftMargin
sngRight = .RightMargin
sngTop = .TopMargin
sngBottom = .BottomMargin
End With
' Include initial field switches and PostScript instructions
sPrintField = " \p page " & Chr$(34) & " .5 setlinewidth "
' Get correct coordinates using the four functions
sPrintField = sPrintField & BottomLeft(sngLeft, sngBottom)
sPrintField = sPrintField & TopLeft(sngLeft, sngTop)
sPrintField = sPrintField & TopRight(sngRight, sngTop)
sPrintField = sPrintField & BottomRight(sngRight, sngBottom)
' Add final PostScript instruction and close the field instruction
sPrintField = sPrintField & "stroke" & Chr$(34)
Set rng = Selection.Sections.First.Headers(wdHeaderFooterPrimary).Range
rng.Collapse wdCollapseStart
rng.Fields.Add Range:=rng, _
Type:=wdFieldPrint, _
Text:=sPrintField, _
PreserveFormatting:=False
End Sub
Function BottomLeft(sngLeft As Single, sngBottom As Single) As String
Dim sReturn As String
sReturn = sngLeft & " " & sngBottom - 2 & " moveto "
sReturn = sReturn & sngLeft & " " & (sngBottom - 2) - 36 & " lineto "
sReturn = sReturn & sngLeft - 2 & " " & sngBottom & " moveto "
sReturn = sReturn & (sngLeft - 2) - 36 & " " & sngBottom & " lineto "
BottomLeft = sReturn
End Function
Function TopLeft(sngLeft As Single, sngTop As Single) As String
Dim sReturn As String
sReturn = sngLeft & " " & (792 - sngTop) + 2 & " moveto "
sReturn = sReturn & sngLeft & " " & (792 - (sngTop + 2)) + 36 & " lineto "
sReturn = sReturn & sngLeft - 2 & " " & 792 - sngTop & " moveto "
sReturn = sReturn & (sngLeft - 2) - 36 & " " & 792 - sngTop & " lineto "
TopLeft = sReturn
End Function
Function TopRight(sngRight As Single, sngTop As Single) As String
Dim sReturn As String
sReturn = 612 - sngRight & " " & (792 - sngTop) + 2 & " moveto "
sReturn = sReturn & 612 - sngRight & " " & (792 - (sngTop + 2)) + 36 & " lineto "
sReturn = sReturn & (612 - sngRight) + 2 & " " & 792 - sngTop & " moveto "
sReturn = sReturn & ((612 - sngRight) + 2) + 36 & " " & 792 - sngTop & " lineto "
TopRight = sReturn
End Function
Function BottomRight(sngRight As Single, sngBottom As Single) As String
Dim sReturn As String
sReturn = 612 - sngRight & " " & sngBottom - 2 & " moveto "
sReturn = sReturn & 612 - sngRight & " " & (sngBottom - 2) - 36 & " lineto "
sReturn = sReturn & (612 - sngRight) + 2 & " " & sngBottom & " moveto "
sReturn = sReturn & ((612 - sngRight) + 2) + 36 & " " & sngBottom & " lineto "
BottomRight = sReturn
End Function

PRINT fields aren't visible in a
document unless you've chosen to view field codes.
To quickly see all the field codes in a document, press Alt-F9.

Dan Mueller and Andrew Savikas