Bleeding space

The standard bleed size for printed materials is usually 3mm. This means adding an extra 3mm to each side of the final product dimensions. For example, if a card size is 90 x 54mm, the bleed size would be 96 x 56mm (90+3+3, 54+3+3). For magazines or advertisements where the image fills the entire page, you can extend the background color and images to the bleed size. This way, even if the paper is not perfectly aligned during trimming, there will be no white edges left.

[With or without blood level design draft and finished product drawing]

How to set bleeding space?

Let's start with the preparation of pre-press documents

When creating a new document, whether it's for a brochure, flyer, or packaging, we need to set the color mode to CMYK and establish a 3mm bleed.

After finalizing the finished product dimensions (the unfolded die-cut layout of the packaging), immediately create the crop marks.

Crop marks are two 5mm lines, one vertical and one horizontal.

The settings in AI are as follows:

Illustrator 8-CS3

Filter>Establish>Crop marks

CS4

Effect>Crop marks

C55-CC

Effect>crop marks

Property>Create crop marks

After setting up the bleed and crop marks, you need to set the margin. There is no specific size requirement for the margin, but it should be at least 3mm away from the crop marks on all sides. For packaging, it is generally set to 5mm.

How to add crop marks in InDesign

InDesign does not set crop marks within the document; you can only pre-set the bleed size when creating the document. If you need to set crop marks, you can do so when converting to PDF.