What is Bleed and Why Is It Important?
Bleed ensures that no unwanted white borders appear along the edges of your trimmed product.
Why is it needed?
After printing, the final product is trimmed to its exact size. While printing and cutting machines are highly precise, paper can behave unpredictably — slight stretching, shifting, or size variation may occur. Even a fraction of a millimeter can result in thin white lines appearing along the edges of colored backgrounds or images.
To prevent this, bleed extends the background color, image, or design elements beyond the final trim size — typically by 2–3 mm on all sides. This way, even if the cut shifts slightly, the design still reaches the edge of the page, resulting in a cleaner, more professional finish.
What to Watch Out For
Important: Avoid placing text or key design elements in the bleed area, as they may be cut off during trimming.
How to Set Up Bleed During Design
It’s not enough to visually extend your design to the edge — bleed must be technically defined in your design software to ensure the file includes the extra area beyond the trim.
Set it up from the start!
- InDesign / Illustrator: You can define bleed when creating a new document — typically 3 mm on all sides.
- If you skip this step, the exported file may crop your design, even if it visually extends beyond the trim.
In Canva Pro:
- Bleed is only available in the paid version and with certain
- You need to manually enable crop marks and bleed before
- Important: You must physically extend the background or image beyond the edge of the page — crop marks alone are not enough.
Our Recommendation
- Set up bleed when creating your document.
- Double-check your export settings before generating a PDF.
- If you're unsure about your file, feel free to send us a test version — we’re happy to review it before printing.
