July 27, 2023
Full bleed printing is a choice you can make when designing a book, poster, brochure, or any promotional material. Used correctly, it adds visual interest and a distinctive style. To get your design to look right, you’ll need to work with a professional printer who’s skilled at full bleed printing. Here are some pointers to working with this printing style.
In printing terms, the word “bleed” refers to text or images that extend beyond the edge of the printed page.
Sometimes known as edge-to-edge printing, full bleed printing is printing where the image extends into the white space. The printing goes beyond the area that is to be trimmed. In this type of bleed, there is no margin or white space.
A full bleed page looks as though the artwork on it is extending or bleeding off the page with no stopping. It’s typically only used to print images and artwork. A book or brochure with full-bleed text would be almost impossible to read.
To see good examples of full-bleed images, look at a children’s book or a book designed to showcase artwork and photography. These books typically feature at least one picture that fills up the entire page with no white space. Many of them have double-page spreads with these full-bleed pictures. As you see, there is no trim or margin on the image. It fills the page and may cross into the adjoining page.
Full bleed printing requires skill and experience, but printers don’t need special equipment to do it. To produce a full bleed digital copy, you must give your printer a finished design that has an extended background. Design the artwork so that it spreads into the margins and across the trim area. Once the document is printed and cut, you will see the artwork extending from edge to edge.
If you would rather have a border instead of full bleed printing, you can design your document with no bleeds. Be sure to include a small margin around the document pages on all four sides.
Full bleed printing is a good choice if you are using full-color artwork that you want to use for dramatic impact. A full bleed works on any project where you want the colors or design to cover the page from end to end.
When you prepare your document or book for printing, you must account for finishing steps that include movement, binding, and cutting. If your project has a lot of folded pages, the thickness can cause the inner pages to shift. In printing, this is known as creep or shingling. If you’ve designed your text and artwork to fit a certain way on the page, these shifts could cause white lines—showing where you placed the trim–to appear on the edge of the page. You may also lose small details that you placed on the edges or corners of the pages.
Bleed is necessary to account for these possible changes and produce a clean, attractive set of pages. Printing outside the margins with a bleed ensures that the final product looks its best.
Most projects with interior borders should have edge-to-edge printing to give them a finished look. Try to design it so that colors meet in the middle to create a design that flows from one page to the page next to it.
Here are some projects where it’s common to use full bleed printing:
Full bleed printing requires skill and experience, but printers don’t need special equipment to do it. To produce a full bleed digital copy, you must give your printer a finished design that has an extended background. Design the artwork so that it extends into the margins and across the trim area. Once the document is printed and cut, you will see the artwork extending from edge to edge.
Here are some basic terms you need to know to understand full bleed printing. These are also the three measurements you’ll have to give your printer when submitting your files.
In most cases, you leave a white space around this material. This is where the sheet will be trimmed during printing and binding. If you look at a typical book, you’ll see that most of the pictures and text have solid, even margins of white space around them.
A trim area is necessary to allow the printer some room to account for the paper’s movement during printing and cutting.
If you would rather have a border instead of full bleed printing, you can design your document with no bleeds. Be sure to include a small margin around the document pages on all four sides.
You may have noticed that your home or office printer always leaves a white edge around your pages. These printers aren’t designed for full bleed printing. If you limit your design to what these printers can achieve, you can’t choose full bleed printing.
Even when you work with a professional printing company, the machine must hold the pages. This means there will always be a white border around each page. If you want your artwork and colors to go all the way to edge, extend the bleed area well beyond the trim. During printing, the edges will be cut off.
The standard size for bleeds is .125 inches or 1/8th of an inch. This is not a hard and fast rule, however. For best results when printing with bleeds, talk to your printing company. Ask them what bleed size they prefer.
Here are some guidelines for working with standard design software packages when printing with bleeds.
Illustrator: When you start working on a document, you can set the bleed guideline. In the menu where you choose the paper size and orientation, you’ll see a list of bleed selections along the lower edge. You can choose top, bottom left, or right margins for your bleed.
InDesign: You can set your bleed guidelines all the way to six inches, which is far more than most printers need. You’ll see the bleed settings in the document setup menu.
Photoshop: Photoshop isn’t designed to create print-ready documents, so bleed setting isn’t an option you will need or find here. If you are working with Photoshop, you can import your pictures to the software designer you are using.
Bleeds are important to getting a well-designed, attractive product, whether it’s a book, catalog, or brochure. If you need help choosing the right bleed for your project, discuss it with your graphic design expert or professional printer.
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