Participant

Issue: PDF Print exports do not recognize bleed correctly

Forum|Forum|1 day ago
May 21, 2026
5 replies
44 views

I need to be able to PDF Print with bleeds and crop marks and it's giving me these awful downloads. How do we fix it? Is there anyone from Adobe Express that can help with tech support?

When I uploaded the file to AI it said this:
The problem — Adobe Express set the BleedBox to a massive 29"×32" area (essentially the same as the giant canvas MediaBox), and the CropBox was also the full canvas. So everything — the huge blue surround, the misplaced bleed, the buried crop marks — was all a side effect of Adobe Express exporting the entire design workspace rather than just the artboard.

Rose DV

Community Manager

So glad that worked @River O.! 🎉 Happy printing!

Just to summarize the workaround for anyone else who finds this thread:

If your exported PDF has excess white space or an oversized bleed area, try going to Edit Page/File > Resize and switching your canvas units to inches before exporting as PDF Print. This appears to resolve the issue while we investigate a proper fix.

Rose

Emma S UOC

Participant

my pdf is exporting as 377.6mm x 464.6mm. There seems to be approximately 80mm on unnecessary white space being added.

Emma S UOC

Participant

I have the same issue, bleed and margins set, correct pritn settings for export set but when I open the pdf it has a huge extra white space and so my page size in pdf is no longer A4 plus bleed. I am Uk so we use mm. Please help!

Rose DV

Community Manager

Hi @Emma S UOC!

Could you try the same workaround that I gave River? Go to Edit Page/File > Resize, switch your units to inches, and then re-export as PDF Print with bleed and crop marks enabled.

Let us know if that resolves the extra white space for you too for now! I’ll make sure the team knows that both mm and px are not transferring bleed correctly.

Rose

Rose DV

Community Manager

Hi @River O.!

Thank you for the helpful context for our team.

You're right that something is off with how the crop and bleed are being set on export. Before we escalate this, could you double-check a couple of things in Express first?

Make sure bleed and margins are set up correctly before exporting: go to File > Bleed and margins and confirm Show bleed is enabled with the correct bleed values. More details here: https://helpx.adobe.com/express/share-and-publish/share-and-collaborate/margin-bleed-crop-marks.html
When downloading, select PDF as the format, then enable Add crop marks and Show bleed toggles before hitting Download.

If you've already done all of that and the exported PDF still has the oversized bleed issue, this sounds like a bug we'd want to escalate. Could you share:

The document dimensions you're working with
A screenshot of your download settings
The link to the project with edit access via DM?
- Open the project in Express
- Click Share > Who has access > Anyone and set to Can edit
- Copy the link and send it to me via DM

Rose

River O.Author

Participant

This particular document is for a 11 x 14 poster

https://new.express.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:88a6eb1e-4438-5220-978b-c04ef4b62a8a?invite=true&accept=true&preload=sharesheet&promoid=Z2G1FQKR&mv=other

Rose DV

Community Manager

Hi @River O. -

Thanks for this - can you confirm that you tried to re-download with the instructions in steps 1 and 2 from my last message? And that the bleed was still the same once you downloaded?

I see from the screenshot that your settings for the project are good, how about the download settings?

Feel free to make a duplicate copy of the project and send me the edit access link to the original project via DM, the team can’t test anything with comment-only access! When you make a duplicate, you can also test the download again to see if it’s project-specific.

Thanks,

Rose