What Is Bleed?

Bleed is the extra strip of artwork that runs past the edge of a printed piece and gets cut off. It is the reason a photo that touches the edge of the page can look slightly cropped in the finished print, and it is the single most common source of confusion when people prepare their own files. This page explains it in plain language, no design background needed.

The 30-second version

• Presses cannot print to the very edge of a sheet. To get color or a photo all the way to the edge, we print the piece slightly oversize and then trim it down to the finished size.
• The strip that gets trimmed away is the bleed. It is 1/8" (0.125") on every edge. Anything in that strip ends up in the recycling bin, not in your hands.
• The cut is not laser-perfect. Paper shifts a hair as it moves through the cutter, so the actual cut can land up to about 1/16" either side of the line. That is why nothing important should sit right at the edge.

Why is part of my photo cut off?

In our online design tools, some layouts place a photo so it runs off the edge of the page. That is a deliberate design choice and it looks great in print, but it means the outer strip of that photo is bleed and will be trimmed away.

• The preview shows the finished piece. What you see on screen is the trimmed page, so if a photo looks slightly cropped there, that is exactly how it will print.
• The photo window shows a dashed cut line. When you position or zoom a photo that reaches the edge, the dimmed strip outside the dashed line is the part that gets trimmed. Drag or zoom so faces and anything important sit comfortably inside the line.
• Give faces a little room. A face right against the dashed line can lose a sliver to cutter variance. A finger-width of space is plenty.
• Want the whole photo to show? Choose a layout where the photo sits inside a frame or a border, or zoom out so the photo has breathing room. You can switch designs at any time without losing your work.

Sending us your own file?

If you are designing in your own software instead of one of our online tools, set the file up like this:

• Page size = finished size plus bleed. Add 0.125" to every edge, so a finished 8.5" x 11" page is a 8.75" x 11.25" file. Most design programs have a bleed setting that does this for you and marks the trim line on screen.
• Extend backgrounds and edge photos into the bleed. Anything that should touch the finished edge must run all the way to the edge of the oversize file.
• Keep text and important elements 1/8" inside the trim line. A 0.125" margin on every side is the minimum.
• Do not fake it with a border. A white or colored frame around a finished-size page is not bleed, and it will print as a visible, uneven border after trimming.
• Export with bleed and without crop marks. Turn on "use document bleed settings" in your PDF export and leave printer's marks off.

Full specs by product are on our File Setup Requirements page. Working in Adobe InDesign? Follow the step-by-step bleed and layout and print-ready PDF export guides, or download the printable Full Bleed Spec Sheet to share with your designer.

Common questions

My background is plain white. Do I still need bleed?

No. If nothing touches the edge of the page, there is nothing to bleed. Just keep your content 1/8" inside the finished edge and send the file at finished size. Bleed only matters when color or a photo is meant to run off the edge.

Can you just print all the way to the edge without trimming?

No press can. Every edge-to-edge piece you have ever held, from a magazine cover to a business card, was printed oversize and cut down. Full-bleed, edge-to-edge printing is standard on everything we produce, at no extra charge, because trimming is built into how we work.

Will the cut land exactly where the line shows?

Within about 1/16". That tolerance is normal for commercial cutting and is exactly why the safe area exists. Anything at least 1/8" inside the trim line is unaffected by it.

Why does the print-at-home version of my program have margins?

Home and office printers cannot print to the edge either, and they have no trimming step. A print-at-home file shrinks the artwork slightly so the whole design fits inside the printer's unprintable margin. The full-bleed version of the same file is the one to hand a print shop that will trim it.