Bleed is an extension of an image or colour(s) that continues beyond the finished trim size. You need a bleed area to ensure that if any slight movement occurs during the printing and finishing stage, the paper's natural colour will not show on the edge of the finished print when trimmed. 

Extending images or colour(s) to the trim edge ensures a continuation of the design on the finished print. You don’t need to add bleed if a white/unprinted background surrounds your artwork and doesn’t extend to a page’s edge. The exceptions to this are if you are providing your print files as images (e.g. JPG, PNG or TIFF). With image files, the images should be uploaded at the bleed size, irrespective of whether you have content touching the trim edge.

You will see four main components in your preview:

• Trim Line: indicates the finished page size and where we’ll aim to trim your artwork, shown by the green line. 
• Bleed Line: the blue line beyond the trim line marks the end of the bleed area.
• Bleed Area: the extension or continuation of image(s) or colour(s) past the trim line.
• Quiet Area: the area between the bleed and the trim line. It keeps text and graphics away from the trim edge or binding area and prevents your content from being trimmed away should the cutting blade not cut precisely on the trim line. This guideline should be a minimum of 5mm inside the trim edge, but it depends on the item.

Adding the correct bleed will ensure we can send your order to production promptly, help you avoid potential delays and prevent our print experts from pausing your order to add a missing bleed. Please note that pausing your order means it will not enter the production queue, and your estimated delivery date may be affected.

All print items except Hardcover (Casebound) Book covers require a 3mm bleed area outside your trim line. When you create a bleed area in your chosen design application, extend any page content that touches the trim edge to the outer bleed edge. We’ll aim to trim off the bleed area that extends away from the trim line, but you should ensure your design fills the bleed area to prevent unprinted borders from appearing on your final prints.

Bleed for Hardcover Books and Covers 

• Hardcover Book covers need a 20mm bleed on all four edges. This bleed will ensure the cover artwork continues around the edge of the covers and wraps around and inside the front and back covers. 
• Your inside pages will require the standard 3mm bleed on all outer edges. 
• Your spine file, if you choose to upload one, will also need a 20mm bleed on the top and bottom edges. Head to the Support page here to learn more about Hardcover Bleed.

Supply print-ready PDF files with a bleed included before uploading. But how you save your files and add bleed to your artwork will depend on the application you use to create them.

Professional graphic design applications like Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Publisher, and Affinity Designer allow you to add bleed. Design programs like Canva allow you to export/download files with the bleed set within the PDF. Mixam's Artwork Manager will recognise the trim and bleed area, and the bleed guidelines are represented in your order's thumbnail images by green and blue lines.

For other commonly used applications like Adobe Photoshop, Pages by Apple and Microsoft Word, Publisher and Powerpoint, you need to incorporate the bleed within the document size; i.e. the document dimensions need to include the bleed. For example, if you print an A4 book at 210mm x 297mm to allow for the additional 3mm bleed on all four edges, you would create your document at 216mm x 303mm; the outer 3mm is the bleed. Once completed, you should save files as PDFs, and the Artwork Manager can then recognise the trim and bleed area. The bleed guidelines are represented in your order's thumbnail images by green and blue lines.

Alternatively, if you are creating your files as images (e.g. TIFF, JPG, PNG), your files will also need to be made and saved at the bleed size, including pages with a white background. Our system has to convert all images to PDF when uploaded to the order and assumes that all image files include a bleed. Our system automatically scales files to the bleed size if they do not have a bleed, and important content may appear unintentionally close to the trim or binding edge.

The gutter area appears on both sides of the inner page edge, where they’re bound together. A publication’s pages are glued together on this binding edge and then to the item's spine. You can avoid content becoming obscured by the binding by positioning it away from this area. 

When designing your artwork for PUR, Hardcover, or Wiro Bound items, our online preview simulates the required gutter size so you can prevent the transparent box on the inner edges from covering important details by setting it within the binding edges.

Staple Bound (Saddle-Stitch) items don’t require a gutter area as we bind them at the fold.

*Add bleed to all outer edges unless otherwise specified.

Mirror Bleed

A mirror bleed duplicates the outer 3mm of your artwork and reflects it into the bleed area, creating an inverted image around each edge. This bleed will prevent unprinted edges from showing the paper's natural colour after trimming. While white keylines and parts of the bleed section may still be visible around the outer edges, it is an effective way to safeguard content.

Upscale Bleed

An upscale bleed will extend your artwork from the trim to the bleed size. This bleed ensures a natural continuation of your design, and your artwork is positioned 3mm inside the bleed area and away from the page edge. This bleed reduces the possibility of keylines appearing and is suitable for content far from the trim edge.

Stretch Bleed

A stretch bleed replicates the outer 5mm of each page edge and stretches it to the bleed edge. While it may cause some details to become blurred with 5mm of the trim edge, this stretch works well with solid colours or mottled areas and can help prevent keylines.