Bleeding into gutter and other facing page

[fierce_play0101]

Hello,

I'd appreciate your expertise here, please.

I have a 250-page book with two-page spreads.

Some of the pages have an image, say, on the left side that bleeds Top, Left, Bottom and extends to the gutter. Problem: it bleeds into the gutter and onto the next page.

My printer said my bleeds have to be the same on all sides, to trim the pages correctly, so I set my bleeds at 0.125" Top, Bottom, Inside, Outside.

Problem: when I adjust images away from the gutter by a point or two, to potentially correct the bleeding over, they still bleed across. I should not have to do this, but it's a limitation of InDesign..

Any suggestions, please?

Thank you,

D 

[Willi Adelberger · Accepted solution]

1. Go to the Pages Panel
2. Select the affected pages
3. In the panel menu deselect allow pages to shuffle
4. Click on one of the affected pages, select it
5. Drag the page to the right until a vrtical bar appears
6. Release the mouse

Now the pages of this 2 page spread became 2 single page spread, where the bleed does not affect the oposite page,

[fierce_play0101]

Sorry, Sir, but this didn't work. Any other ideas, please?

[fierce_play0101]

Thank you. It didn’t work.

[Willi Adelberger]

You have not done, what I have described. The page panel should look like this: 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

@Willi Adelberger is correct. 

7. Adjust the inside bleed on the image page.

You just need to do it on spreads where the image is only on one page. If an image jumps the gutter, you don't have to do anything. 

[fierce_play0101]

Thank you for taking the time to answer. How do i adjust the bleed ONLY on the affected pages. When I click on a page and select FILE >> DOCUMENT SETUP, it adjusts ALL the pages in that document. This is how I'm confused: adjusting bleeds on SINGLE pages, not the entire document. Many thanks!

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Just to it spread-by-spread as needed.

Don't forget to adjust the bleed after you split the spread.

[fierce_play0101]

Thank you.

Here's what I've discovered in reading these replies: it is difficult to interpret some of them, let alone implement them. You guys seem to take for granted that guys like me are old hands at this. I, for one, am not, so I need hand-holding. 

Thanks again,

D

[jmendesign]

Hi. 
if I understood correctly you don't need bleed in the spine. Just make the bleed in the master pages across the borders (you need to make a master as a spread). 

[fierce_play0101]

Please explain in detail. I cannot find any intel on this topic. Thank you.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Where are you viewing this effect in your first screenshot?

And how is the book being bound? (i.e. saddle-stitch or something else)

[fierce_play0101]

Hello

I am viewing this in Adobe Acrobat, latest version.

I tried all the above suggestions, and I greatly appreciate them! 

Unfortunately, all this happened when I upgraded to InDesign 2024-25. Many little things shifted and got tweaked during the conversion of my book files. 

Adobe denies everything, of course, stating it's my issue. Yes, I know it's my issue, dear Adobe, caused by your buggy program and your inability to produce a workabout app. 

Soooo, the bottom line is this: I have a 250-page book that previously converted to pdf files (cover and interior) with older versions of InDesign, and now is a shitshow.

Yes, I also re-loaded older versions I'd used last year, but those now do NOT open the new InDesign files. 

The Catch-22: if I save interior file as a SPREAD, the inner bleeds do not jump across the gutter. For those of you who know commerical printing, you know that pdf files must be saved as PAGES, not spreads.

So, I'm happy to take new suggestions, folks. I've spent two weeks going through many an iteration that ended up with images that jumped across gutters. 

Thanks for your ongoing support.

Cheers,

D

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I don't think you understand the process:

If there is nothing in the gutter, you don't have to touch the spreads.

If an image jumps the gutter, you don't have to touch the spreads.

If an image is only on one page and stops at the gutter spine, then split the spread apart as shown in my gif.

None of these options affect the export as pages. 

[fierce_play0101]

Your ideas and suggestions DO NOT work.

[fierce_play0101]

This all started when I "upgraded" to the 2024 version of InDesign. And many other little things also went wrong, like a single image across a two-page spread not lining up correctly in the gutter, when I export as PDF. Little things that did not occur when I used 2023 and earlier versions of InDesign.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Your original post and follow-up posts indicate that you did not know HOW to split the spreads to adjust the bleed. I just tested it on a single-page bleed that I split apart in InDesign (and bled into the gutter) and a two-page spread. Both came out as expected in the PDF and the two-page spread was cross-aligned properly.

[fierce_play0101]

I DO understand the process, but YOU do not understand the solution. Obviously. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

The spread spliting is done in InDesign.

Are you saying you can't split the spreads as shown?

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I don't understand YOUR problem. I DO understand the solution to single page gutter bleeds.

[fierce_play0101]

Book is a 250-page hardcover picture book. 

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

"I am viewing this in Adobe Acrobat, latest version."

Okay, when you export a PDF with bleed, Acrobat shows you the entire printed image. This is NOT the same as the trim size of your book. Say your book is 8" x 10", when you export a PDF with bleed, it will now display as 8.25" x 10.25". You can see this by hovering near the bottom left of the page.

This extra sliver in the gutter (fold) is in the bleed area which will get cropped off when this PDF is imported into imposition software at the printer, so, once again, you can ignore it.

What may help you is to turn on "Show art, trim and bleed boxes" in your Acrobat preferences. With taht on, you can see where your page will be trimmed.

As to why this sliver is there in the inside gutter, is because there are instances (like a crossover photo, or say a solid colour fill that crosses over) that require this bleed, so InDesign's motive is it's better to include than NOT to include it, even if it seems superfluous and gets cropped off. In the imposition process, it sometimes become necessary to shift pages on the pages in a printed signature, especially to account for creep, so that thing slike page numbers and graphic near the outer edge stay consistent after trimming. In rare cases, a page may need to be moved outwards in such a way that if the page ended exactly at the fold line, you might see a sliver of white there, which you don't want, so again, it's better to have something than not have something.

 If you want a PDF that would view without the bleed, just make a separate PDF for that purpose (say for online web use), and keep the version with the bleed only for the printer's purposes.