The bleed (kifutó) ensures that no unwanted white borders appear along the edges of the finished, trimmed product.
Why is it needed?
After printing, we cut the finished materials to their exact size. Although presses and cutting tools work with great precision, the natural behavior of paper (e.g. slight stretching, movement, size variation) means that a deviation of a few tenths of a millimeter can occur.
That can be enough for a tiny white strip to appear along the edge of the colored background or images when the piece is cut.
The point of bleed is that we extend the background color, image or graphic beyond the trim size, usually by 2–3 mm in every direction. That way, if the cut shifts a little, the graphic still reaches neatly all the way to the edge of the sheet – and the end result is cleaner and better looking.
What should you watch out for?
- Important: Text or essential graphic elements should never be placed in the bleed area, because they can easily get cut off.
How do you set up bleed while designing?
It is not enough to leave the bleed by eye at the edge of the design – in print design software it has to be specified as a technical setting so that the file really does contain the parts that extend beyond the cut.
Pay attention to it right when you create the document!
- InDesign / Illustrator: you can specify the bleed when creating a new document – this is typically 3 mm on every side.
- If you skip this, the file may cut off the edge of the graphic on export, even if it visually extended beyond the page.
With Canva Pro:
- The bleed feature is only available in the paid version and with certain templates.
- Crop marks and bleed have to be turned on manually before downloading.
- Important: the background color or image also has to be physically stretched out beyond the edge of the page – crop marks alone are not enough.
That is why we recommend:
- Set up the bleed right when you create the document.
- Before exporting the PDF, check the settings.
- If you are not sure about your file, send it to us as a test – we are happy to take a look at it before it goes to print.
