Bleed check

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
March 9, 2025
2 replies
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Hi, newbie here. Please would you mind letting me know if I have set bleed correctly - see first screenshot attached. I dragged the black background to the red line Am I meant to drag it past that line though? And for the white page on the left, do I to drag the white background out to the red line too? On all my white pages, I don’t have any images sitting close to the page edge so not sure if I need to? I also attach the bleed settings in Document Setup. I set slug to zero as I don’t have any extra info for the printer. I hugely appreciate your help.

How to

Correct answer Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Here is how to handle bleed on a magazine-type layout. This assumes you are supplying a print-quality PDF to the printer.

If nothing touches the edges of the page, you don't need to do anything:

If a single image or background jumps the spread, you don't need to do anything:

If an image ends at the inside page edge--either on a single page or both pages (as shown here), you need to split the spread and adjust the inside bleed:

(I cheated and simply stretched the image out, but it should be enlarged and cropped.)

You do not have to put the spread back together.

A couple of other tips:

Change your preferences to show black accurately.

Large black areas, such as your black background or very large type, should be a 4/C black (not to be confused with Registration color). Color combos are like cake recipes--everyone has a different recipe. I use 100K, 40C, 40M, 40Y for mine.

To add to @Robert at ID-Tasker advice, your total pages need to be divisible by 4, not necessarily 16. Depending on the printing method, it might need to be divisible by 4, 8, or 16 (however, not that all divisible by 4). Ask your printer.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Correct answer

Community Expert

Here is how to handle bleed on a magazine-type layout. This assumes you are supplying a print-quality PDF to the printer.

If nothing touches the edges of the page, you don't need to do anything:

If a single image or background jumps the spread, you don't need to do anything:

If an image ends at the inside page edge--either on a single page or both pages (as shown here), you need to split the spread and adjust the inside bleed:

(I cheated and simply stretched the image out, but it should be enlarged and cropped.)

You do not have to put the spread back together.

A couple of other tips:

Change your preferences to show black accurately.

Large black areas, such as your black background or very large type, should be a 4/C black (not to be confused with Registration color). Color combos are like cake recipes--everyone has a different recipe. I use 100K, 40C, 40M, 40Y for mine.

To add to @Robert at ID-Tasker advice, your total pages need to be divisible by 4, not necessarily 16. Depending on the printing method, it might need to be divisible by 4, 8, or 16 (however, not that all divisible by 4). Ask your printer.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@Dave Creamer of IDEAS

My point about 16 pages was, that it most likely won't need inside bleed.

And instead of splitting pages to different spreads - pages can be just moved away from each other - so the document will look more "natural".

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

A perfect-bound document usually needs more than 16 pages. That's a question for this particular printer. For example, one of my printers had a minimum page count of 64 pages plus covers (68 total) for perfect-bound magazines. Below that, it was saddle stitch.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)