You’ve likely received a flyer that looked flawless in your design software, only to find it returned from the printer sporting a white outline, or perhaps the copy is too close to the cut. This occurs because after printing, the sheets get trimmed, but we can’t expect the trimmer blades to land on a precise millimetre mark on each sheet every single time. In fact, the cut line can differ on each side.
What this means is that you need to plan for this variance, and the layout tools that help you are known as bleed, trim, and safe areas. While the name can confuse many people, each area serves a different purpose that can be quite useful in a layout. Let’s go over how to plan your layout so you can take advantage of them properly.
The Trim Area
Let’s start with the trim area.
The trim line is the final size. If your printed flyer ends up being 148 x 210mm (A5), then these are your trim area dimensions.
Your printer doesn’t usually print a small 148 x 210mm sheet from the machine. Instead, it prints your job on a larger sheet and trims it to the right dimensions. Due to that trimming process (and the fact that it is not a digital process), there can be a slight variation. So, if you place a coloured strip along that trim line it can show up differently on both sides. For instance, a border may appear wider on one side and narrower on another even when the digital layout was mathematically centered.
The Bleed Area
Next up, we have the bleed area. Bleed is anything (background, image, etc) that goes beyond your trim area to allow for variance. Depending on your printer, the amount of bleed area required can change. Make sure to check with your printer first before creating your layout. If they request 3mm of bleed, then you should make sure that your image covers your entire page and extends out 3mm beyond your trim. If you have a large photograph on your page, you need to ensure it fills the extra space too and just isn’t blank.
The Safe Zone
While your bleed helps the background, there are some things you want to stay away from the trim line and that’s the safe zone. The opposite of bleed is your safe area. This is an area where all your vital information such as copy, page numbers, logos, and graphics need to stay within.
This is especially useful when you are creating a printed business card or other small size flyers. A few pixels can mean the difference between a great layout and a bad one. You also want to be aware of this safe zone when your flyer is to be folded too, as you may need additional spacing between the trim and the fold. As well, the size of these zones depends on the size of your page. However, the concept remains the same.
A Good Exercise
A good exercise for your layout tool is to take one of your smaller jobs and create it with the final trimmed size. Add in your guides for bleed, trim line, and the safe area and make sure all of your content is in the right places. Place a background colour that reaches the bleed edge, then place a headline and logo inside the safe area.
When you save as PDF from there, check the document size in the preview to see if the exported PDF includes the bleed or whether any of the crop marks end up beyond the trim line and if any of your content has moved close to it. It’s much easier to see what these lines do when you can visualise it!
Other Problems
Now that you are more familiar with these three tools, other layout issues start to make sense. This includes a background finishing exactly on the trim line (resulting in white slivers), placing the logo too close to the edge so that text is cramped or even cut, and using a border that makes the normal variation in trimming very obvious.
You should also be aware of how crop marks can be confusing. They’re there to indicate that trimming is to happen, but they don’t replace the need for a bleed nor do they include one on their own.
The best approach before sending your file to print is to check your finished size, bleed requirements, where all the vital info is (safe zone) and what export PDF settings are required for your printer to accept them.
Wrapping It Up
Improvement starts from your understanding on which content falls outside and which inside, and what is your final trim line. Before you accept the file as print ready, look at it at its page view and ask yourself, if the background is okay to be trimmed if it goes slightly further, and whether you have adequate space on the final print to include your vital content. If the answer to these is a solid “Yes”, then you’re on the path to good preflighting and fewer avoidable production headaches!