A lot of customers come in and inquire about the requirements for press ready files, thus PDF files that are ready for printing.
They are often intrigued when we say ‘bleed and crop marks’. So we thought we would give a brief explanation of what these are which will help you next time when setting up your files.
Always remember that the team at Image Direct are always happy to help with any questions you may have.
Example:
Your document is A4 with lots of colour that extends to the edge of the document. This will need bleed and crop marks. We usually recommend a 5mm bleed on every side of your PDF press ready file. Bleed marks is the extra allowance that extends the colour to this added 5mm so the colour runs off the page. Crop marks distinguishes the page size to the page size plus bleed marks. These crop marks are visible in each corner of your Press Ready file.
When the document is printed, crop marks allow print production to trim to these marks removing the excess bleed.
So why put the bleed on when it will be chopped off? It is important to have this bleed as when the document is trimmed the bleed marks prevent any white edge showing where they not wanted.
Bleed marks can be created in the document setup before saving your work as a Press ready PDF and crop marks can been added when saving it out as the PDF.
We’re here to help
If you have any queries or would like help on these topics, our friendly team at Image Direct are always here to help and are happy to talk you through these procedures.
