What is bleed and why does it matter?

Bleed is one of the most common file prep requirements and one of the most common reasons files get flagged during prepress review. Understanding what it is and why it's required will save you time and help you avoid revisions.

What is bleed?
Bleed is the extra image or color that extends beyond the edge of your finished page. When a book is printed and trimmed to its final size, the cutting equipment works within a small tolerance, meaning the trim line can shift slightly from sheet to sheet. Bleed accounts for that variation by ensuring that any background color or image that runs to the edge of the page continues past it, so there's no white gap if the cut runs slightly wide.

Without bleed, even a small shift in the trim can leave a thin white strip along the edge of your page, particularly noticeable on pages with full-bleed backgrounds, photos, or colored borders.

How much bleed do you need?
Bradford & Bigelow requires 0.125 inches (1/8") of bleed on all edges where your design extends to the trim. This is the industry standard for most commercial print applications.

What about the safe zone?
The flip side of bleed is the safe zone which is the area inside your trim line where critical content like text, logos, and important imagery should stay. Keep text and key design elements at least 0.125 inches inside the trim on all sides to ensure nothing gets clipped during cutting.

Setting up bleed in your design file
Most professional design applications handle bleed at the document setup stage:

• In Adobe InDesign, set bleed in the New Document dialog or under File > Document Setup
• In Adobe Illustrator, set bleed under File > Document Setup
• In Adobe Acrobat, verify bleed is present by checking the crop marks and bleed box in the PDF

Need help checking your file?
Use our print file readiness checker to verify your file meets B&B's requirements before you submit. If you have questions, contact our prepress team.