On this page 6 sections
Print bleed is a strip of extra background that runs past the line where your item gets cut, so the blade always lands in colour and never leaves a thin white edge. Its partner is the safe zone: a margin inside the cut that keeps words and logos well away from the edge. For rigid signs and boards the numbers are simple: 3 mm of bleed on every side, and text at least 10 mm in from the cut. Banners, roller banners and a couple of small items play by different rules, all listed below.
Why cutting needs a margin for error #
Printing and trimming are separate jobs, and no cutter lands on exactly the same fraction of a millimetre every time. If your background colour stops dead at the finished edge, the tiniest drift shows up as a hairline of bare white down one side. Carry the colour a little further than the cut, and wherever the blade falls, it falls on colour.
The safe zone solves the opposite problem. A phone number or the final letter of a web address parked right at the edge can get nicked by that same drift, and even when it doesn’t, it looks squashed. Pull it inward and it survives any wobble. An easy way to remember it: backgrounds go out, important stuff comes in.
Print bleed and safe zones, product by product #
How an item is finished decides its margins. Boards are cut out of bigger sheets. Banners are hemmed and have eyelets punched in. Roller banners vanish into a base at the bottom.
| Item | Bleed to add | Where words and logos go |
|---|---|---|
| Rigid boards and signs: Foamex, Dibond, Correx | 3 mm all round | 10 mm or more inside the cut |
| Paper: flyers, posters, letterheads and the like | 3 mm all round | Comfortably inside the cut. Our designer keeps at least 3 mm clear on flyers and 5 mm on letterheads |
| PVC and mesh banners with hems and eyelets | None: send the finished size | 50 mm or more from each edge |
| Roller banners | None: send the finished size, such as 850 × 2000 mm | Keep the lowest 150 to 200 mm free of anything that matters |
| Printed envelopes, rubber stamps | None | Envelopes are printed after they’re made up; stamps print in a single ink with no background |
The 50 mm banner margin feels generous until you see a hem folded back and an eyelet punched through, both close to the edge. Anything nearer can end up tucked under or holed. On a roller banner, the base and often a table in front cover the bottom of the graphic, so contact details belong higher up. Our guide to roller banner design goes into that.
Page sizes with print bleed added #
Anything that takes bleed needs a page 6 mm bigger than the finished size in both directions: 3 mm on each side. Here are the usual A sizes and a DL, with the sign safe zone (10 mm inside the cut) worked out too:
- A5, finished 148 × 210 mm: set the page to 154 × 216 mm; sign safe zone 128 × 190 mm.
- DL, finished 99 × 210 mm: page 105 × 216 mm; safe zone 79 × 190 mm.
- A4, finished 210 × 297 mm: page 216 × 303 mm; safe zone 190 × 277 mm.
- A3, finished 297 × 420 mm: page 303 × 426 mm; safe zone 277 × 400 mm.
- A2, finished 420 × 594 mm: page 426 × 600 mm; safe zone 400 × 574 mm.
- A1, finished 594 × 841 mm: page 600 × 847 mm; safe zone 574 × 821 mm.
- A0, finished 841 × 1189 mm: page 847 × 1195 mm; safe zone 821 × 1169 mm.
The A sizes are set by the international paper standard ISO 216, and our page of A paper sizes in mm lists the whole series.
Adding bleed to your file #
Programs differ and menu names change, so read these as the order to work in rather than exact clicks.
- Open a page at the finished size. For an A3 sign that’s 297 × 420 mm. InDesign, Illustrator and Affinity all have bleed boxes in the new document window: type 3 mm into each.
- No bleed box? Build it into the page. Word and PowerPoint lack a bleed setting, so make the page 6 mm bigger each way, such as 303 × 426 mm for A3. Just remember the real edge now sits 3 mm inside the page edge.
- Stretch backgrounds to the outer edge. Every colour block, photo or pattern that touches a side should reach the very edge of the bleed, not stop at the trim.
- Mark the safe zone. Put guides 10 mm inside the trim on a sign. In Word or PowerPoint that means 13 mm from the page edge, because of the extra bleed. On a banner, place them 50 mm in.
- Bring text and logos inside the guides. Check every item, small print included, such as a registration number or web address.
- Rethink thin borders. A narrow frame hugging the edge turns any tiny cutting drift into a visibly lopsided border. Drop it, or move it well inside the safe zone.
- Export with bleed switched on. Tick the include-bleed option when saving the PDF. Our guide to a PDF for printing shows where that lives in common programs.
Print bleed mistakes we see most #
- Scaling the whole design to fill the bleed. That shoves the text outward too. Extend only the background.
- Adding bleed to a banner. Banners and roller banners are supplied at the finished size; the 50 mm margin does the job instead.
- A web address in the roller base. The bottom 150 mm is often the first thing to disappear.
- A deliberate white border that’s too thin. If you want one, make it wide and even, and keep the bleed area white as well.
If you use the online designer #
The designer handles bleed and safe zones for you. On the canvas you’ll see a red cut line, a dashed line marking where text should stay inside, and a dotted bleed line, explained by a small key at the bottom. Background colours and templates already reach into the bleed. Drag text past the dashed line and the checks panel warns it might be trimmed or lost in a hem; text crossing the cut line has to be moved before you can finish. Eyelet positions on banners and the base section of roller banners appear on screen only and never get printed.
Uploading your own file? A person checks it for free, looking at resolution, size and bleed, and tells you if anything needs changing. The full rules are on our artwork guidelines page, and for photo quality see image resolution for print.