[pdftex] pdf(pdflatex) vs ps(dvips) documents, crop marks, images

[Ulrich Dirr]

Reinhard Kotucha wrote:
>     > I use pdflatex to make a4 documents for online use, but some
of
>     > them are also wanted for commercial printing, which means they
>     > need margins and crop marks.
> 
>     > I tried simply using Melchior Franz' crop.sty, and I got
>     > beautiful margins and crop marks, but only in the upper left
>     > corner of the visible pdf output, which remains a4 sized!  Did
>     > do something wrong? 
> 
> I would not put the crop marks into the original document.  Just let
> pdftex make a normal A4 pdf file, for instance "myfile.pdf".
> 
> Then prepare a separate file called a5crop.tex:
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> \documentclass[a5paper]{article}
> \usepackage[cam,a4,center,axes]{crop}
> \usepackage{pdfpages}
> \begin{document}
> \includepdf[pages=-]{myfile.pdf}
> \end{document}
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Finally run "pdflatex a5crop".  Note that you can use this script to
> add crop marks and/or to scale *any* pdf document independent of the
> program that created it.  The pdfpages documentation gives some more
> information.  The only drawback is that hyperlinks get lost.  So you
> cannot use it for the online version.

I'm now using for years successfully an adapted version of crop.sty
and it works perfectly well with pdftex. Together with a handful of
\setboolean commands I can control wether or not I want to get crop
marks, special info lines (+ rcs info), or a baseline grid.

So I'm wondering what you mean by "I would not put the crop marks into
the original document."?

Best regards,
Ulrich Dirr