How to crop a vector graphic in Adobe Illustrator to paste into InDesign?

Question

I tried cropping a vector image in Adobe Illustrator by following this link:

How can I crop everything outside of an art board in Illustrator?

I was able to do it once.

I repeated the steps and it just won't crop.

I found out the 'secret' steps.

Follow the same steps in the link up to: Object > Clipping Mask > Make.

Double click on the object. Double click again on the object. Double click again on the object. It will turn into a white rectangle. Press Delete. The subject graphic shows up slightly faded. Double click on this. It becomes unfaded. Select a bounding box around it and copy.

In Adobe InDesign, create a rectangle frame. Paste Into. Fit frame to contents.

Repeated again and it doesn't work anymore. There is a lot of white space around the graphic. I've tried a dozen times.

Anybody had this problem and is able to solve it?

Answer 1

It sounds like what you need to do is change the size of the artboard in Illustrator. This will mean that, when you place the file in InDesign, anything that falls outside the artboard is 'cropped'.

1. In Illustrator, draw a box around your image where you want it to be cropped
2. Go Object > Artboards > Convert to Artboards
3. Hit Save
4. Now place this Illustrator file into InDesign – you'll find it is now cropped to the shape of the artboard.