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Trim, safe area, and bleed area

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
September 22, 2022
4 replies
4409 views

Hello Community,

I am new to Indesign and am creating an ad layout to submit to a magazine publisher. The specs they provided to me are:

Total Ad Size Area: 8.5” x 11.125” (bleeds included)

Magazine trims to 8.375” x 10.875”
Total Safe Size Area: 7.75” x 10.375”
Bleed: Top/Bottom: .125” Left/Right: .0625”

Can someone walk me through how to set this up properly in InDesign (2022)?

Thank you!

How to

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Correct answer Derek Cross

The other piece of information you need to establish, in addition to the TPS, is what kind of PDF does the magazine publisher want of your artwork - usually it's either PDF/X-1 or PDF/X-4 and also establish if they want trim marks included. You can export to these specs from the InDesign Adobe PDF presets. (Also ensure you tick "include bleed settings" in the subsequent dialogue box).
Most publishers produce a technical spec sheet covering these points.

Derek Cross

Correct answer

Community Expert

The other piece of information you need to establish, in addition to the TPS, is what kind of PDF does the magazine publisher want of your artwork - usually it's either PDF/X-1 or PDF/X-4 and also establish if they want trim marks included. You can export to these specs from the InDesign Adobe PDF presets. (Also ensure you tick "include bleed settings" in the subsequent dialogue box).
Most publishers produce a technical spec sheet covering these points.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

InDesign doesn't have a "safe size area" setting, but you can calculate by the following:

Left/Right Margins = Trim width - Safe area width / 2

Top/Bottom margins = Time height - Safe area height /2

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

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

File > New Document...

Magazine Trim is your Document Page Size

Bleed is usually 1/8" and is setup in the File > Document Setup or when you did a File > New Document

Safe Are could be your Margins on the page.

Mike Witherell

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Just one note to Mike's excellent post...

The safe area and the margins might be different. The safe area is the closest you want to get any critical items to the trim edge, such as people's faces in photos, phone numbers, etc.

Margins should be set up for the editorial content.

In the example below, based off of your measurements:

The outer red lines are the bleed lines.
The black box is the trim size.
The blue guides are your safety area.
The pink guides are the "design" margins.

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

Peter Spier

Community Expert

Hey David,

For a full page ad I'm doubtful the concept of Editorial Content really applies...

Derek Cross

Community Expert

You need to confirm the Trimmed Page Size (TPS) of the magazine and to this (assuming it's for a full page advertisement,) you add the bleed requirements. Safe area is not so important, just don't put text too near the edges. Normally bleed of .125" (1/8") is added to each edge.
The printer will delete one of the long edge bleeds, depending on whether it's a right hand or left hand page.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

The safe area is the area that will remain visible even if the page is shifted to the maximum allowed by the bleed when thee magazine is trimmed (these things happen), so you should set your margins as the safe are guide and be sure everything important stays inside the margins, preferably well inside.

The specs are actually pretty clear. Set up your page at 8.375 x 10.875. Add top and bottom bleed of .125 and left and right side bleed of .0625 (clearly they don't expect much shift left-to-right).

Safe area is generally defined as leaving space around it the same size as the bleed allownaces, as it is in this case, so set your margins to a minimum of .125 top and bottom and .0625 left and right. Personally, I'd use larger, especially on the left and right to avoid anything getting lost in the binding.

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