CROP IN INDESIGN PDF
It is not uncommon for a printer to ask a customer to submit a PDF with crop-marks on, but if a customer is making a PDF based on default settings and then changing the default values by simply clicking marks on or off without changing the offset values, then problems can occur later. In the example above, none of the marks and bleeds have been turned on either, nor have the bleeds been set, yet this is how the defaults shipped with InDesign will appear. The exports which ship with Adobe InDesign all have a crop offset of 2.117mm as default, (as shown above) which is not a lot. However, using the shipped defaults or following step by step instructions can be problematic as it is easy for one major check-box to be missed which can cause delays in the art department: the Marks and Bleeds dialog of the PDF export window. Pre-saved joboptions files are my preference given that these settings supplied by printers to their customers are normally the same settings that the art department will use in-house, so will be fine.
Some instruct their customers to use standard defaults such as PDF/X-3: 2002, some will have their own step-by-step instructions to the export dialog boxes, while others are more sophisticated and offer pre-saved joboptions files for clients to download and install. It is not uncommon for printers to ask their clients to prepare PDFs to certain specifications. When preparing PDFs for commercial printers via Adobe InDesign, be aware of how far away any crop marks generated by the export will be from the trim-size of the finished artwork.