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Ive got a bunch of business cards i would like to print and cut out myself.

I have created the card artwork in inDesign. The card is 55 x 85mm.

Is there a way i can tell inDesign to print the cards with crop marks with multiple cards printed on an a4 sheet ? I know i could export the inDesign business card design as a PNG or similar, then place them into another inDesign file and tile them that way, but wondered if there was a more automated solution.

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InDesign happily allows you to place InDesign files into InDesign files... like so:

enter image description here

So why not just do this? Simple, retain full editability of placed files, elegant, and no fuss.

Hope that helps some.

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  • Thanks, i guess the only difference is in the standard print dialog you can add crop marks, which would make it easier to cut out the b cards. Do you know if there is a tool to add crop marks in inDesign or should i just draw them using the line tool ?
    – sam
    Commented Feb 25, 2019 at 17:39
  • I'd say given you started in InDesign, I'd draw 'em; for myself, when I do business card design (or any other graphics / logo work) I work in Illustrator (or Affinity Designer) and place those files. Illustrator has a built-in "make trim marks" which will take a rectangle of given size and convert it to a 4-ides trim - you can copy-paste that from Illustrator into InDesign, which may be your best option. As you can see from my screengrabs, one poor thing about using ID files placed to ID is that the bleeds get cut off, whereas if it were a placed Illustrator graphic with trims, it'd work.
    – GerardFalla
    Commented Feb 25, 2019 at 19:05
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    When placing an InDesign file, you can choose to include bleed. But you can't have crop marks.
    – Wolff
    Commented Feb 27, 2019 at 15:34
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This is how I have done full bleed for "Letter Size" 8.5" X 11" I hope it helps someone. Set up Business Card with bleed (I use .0625” for bleed settings) This helps fit 10 cards into a letter size paper. Export to pdf (use bleed settings, no crop marks) Create new document. 8.5 x 11. no margin, no bleed Import Full bleed pdf Click on upper right box on “Reference box” Set corner to 0.0 and 0.0 Add Layer(2)Create business card size box on new layer Align to center both vertically and horizontally Group objects on separate layers Goto “Edit”, “Step and repeat” Layer1 Use the full bleed size to set rows and columns Lock Layer 1 Click on Layer 2 Goto “Edit”, “Step and repeat” Group all and center on page 1 layer at a time Ungroup all Lock full bleed Layer Select all on 2nd layer, (business card size boxes) Ungroup Goto “Scripts”, “Java Scripts” “Crop Marks” Set Length to 18pts Uncheck “Registration Marks” click Radio button “Each Object” You may now delete layer 2(business card size box) The crop Mark script added a new layer with the crop marks. If desired you can go into “My crop Marks layer” and delete the middle marks.

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