Bleed check

[ali_4619]

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.

[Robert at ID-Tasker · Accepted solution]

Black is OK. 

Left - have you placed a Rectangle with the same size as the page? But there is no need - left page is OK.

Settings are OK as well. 

How your document will be printed? 

[ali_4619]

Thanks so much. I didn't put a rectangle on the left page. I'm getting it commercially printed, perfect bound - is that what you mean?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

All great - as long as you'll have ONLY 16 pages.

If you'll have more - then you'll have to talk to the printing people about the inside bleed - if it's needed or not...

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS · Accepted solution]

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.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@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]

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. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I perfer the split-spread look on the Pages panel since it reminds me to check the inside bleed after any layout changes. I can always move the spreads back together is the need changes. 

One can certainly ignore the inside bleed for a perfect-bound product, since the bleed would be part of the grind-off. As long as nobody presses the publication flat, it may not be noticed. (This is assuming it isn't using lay-flat perfect binding.)