Bleed and margins: the detail that costs the most

You designed a colour background running to the edge. When the job comes back, a thin white strip appears down one side. That is not a printing fault: the bleed was missing.

Why it happens

Nothing is printed at its final size. The sheet is larger, then trimmed. Trimming is accurate to within a millimetre or two — no better. If your background stops exactly at the edge of the format, the slightest shift reveals white paper.

The fix: overflow

Bleed means extending your background 3 mm beyond the final size on all four sides. The cut then falls inside the overflow, and white never shows.

In practice, for A5 (148 × 210 mm) your document should be 154 × 216 mm including bleed. Most software offers a “bleed” box: set it to 3 mm and export to PDF.

The other edge: the safe area

Equally, keep anything important at least 5 mm inside the edge: text, logo, phone number. This safety margin guarantees nothing gets trimmed off.

In short

• +3 mm outside — the background or image overflows
• The final size — the cutting line
• −5 mm inside — nothing important beyond this

If you are not sure how

Send the file as it is and tell us. We add the bleed where the layout allows, or warn you if it is not possible — before printing, never after.

Ask us about a file →