Sometimes you can create what looks like an absolutely perfect file on your screen, only to receive your prints from the printer back with a white edge around the perimeter or text or images too close to the edge, cut off, or just barely within it. Often this is an issue of confusing one or another of the print files’ boundaries; the trim size, the bleed area, or the safe area. What might seem like mere guides to you in your software are actually defining different things in the production process. By learning these distinctions, you can more easily create a print file that allows you to cut without compromising your design.
The trim size of a printed piece is the size the final printed product needs to be when it’s complete, after the trimming takes place. If you’re making an A5 flyer, a business card, a label or a brochure page panel, create your flyer at the size that the final product must be, rather than making it at some sort of working size and scaling it up or down at the end. Scaling at the last minute affects the size of text, resolution of photos, spacing between words, size of folds and much more. So be sure you know the trim size in terms of width, height, and landscape or portrait orientation first before you add any design content to a file. The printer usually has the specifications; requirements change from place to place.
The bleed area is beyond the trim size and is used when your photos or color backgrounds touch all edges. The trim size might be very accurate, but there can be slight variation when you cut the paper. The bleed area is the extra space that allows you to place background images or colors at any edge, with the assurance that the edge-to-edge image or colors go right to that cut edge, even if the printer is a tiny bit inaccurate. When you have a photo or solid color that is meant to extend to the edge, be sure that it extends fully into the bleed area. Don’t just scale your entire file up to add more room, or you’ll move the text, logo and other important elements to the outside as well; only the elements you want that should bleed to that cut edge should extend there.
The safe area is the opposite of the bleed. It is within the trim size, and provides a comfortable distance between where your images should end and what will be cut from your final product. Headlines, addresses, phone numbers, logotypes, page numbers, and thin decorative elements should remain within it. While your file may actually have a sufficient bleed area, the file may feel less like you’ve thought things through if you have text and other important pieces too close to an edge or to be cut. The safe area should not be thought of as an area that has to be empty, but rather an area within the trim size that serves as the space in which you should ensure your content lives; this gives room for the design to feel “uncongested” and information legible.
To demonstrate what the above three areas actually look like on a layout, try making one of these small flyers, making sure to set the file size up at the correct finish size and the correct amount of bleed, and then add a safe area within the trim size to help you understand the concept of a “buffer” zone. Put your background into your bleed area, then put your headlines, logo and other elements within that safe area. Save a PDF copy of that and look at it in your file viewer to see if the dimensions and crop marks match what you’d expect them to be (and if you’re at a production company, they might be able to print one off for you to actually mark where the cut line would be on your piece, or cut one out to see for yourself how the three areas actually relate).
Before sending files to production, always double check the three areas to make sure they match up to what the file needs: the file should be the right size for the trim size, images that need to go edge-to-edge should extend into the bleed area, and elements such as text and images that you want to make sure are not cut or are not “too close” to a cut edge should reside safely within the trim size. You can also check whether your production facility wants you to actually include crop marks, as some shops may create those themselves when they go to do the final imposition. But it’s a great sign when you can look at a file and be able to see that it’s actually got a design with elements that bleed off the edge of the cut piece, elements that need to go in and be inside the finish size, and elements that need to move even further in to keep text safe from cutting or too close to the edge.