Trim, Bleed and Quiet Areas
From a sharp cutting blade falling short of a trim size to a shift in how paper is layered up for a print run, sometimes printing machines need allowances in case inaccuracies occur during a print run.
One essential way to avoid issues is submitting your print files to Mixam with bleed. A bleed means your print work extends beyond the trim line to prevent white edges from appearing. If there is a slight cutting variance - you will not get exposed, unprinted edges. Quiet areas will also keep any vital design elements away from the page edge.
Similarly, colours can move when printing 4-colour CMYK ink from metal plates in high-volume litho print runs. To help prevent this, we strategically print lighter colours first, followed by darker colours, to avoid white lines between two blocks of colour appearing if any manufacturing variance occurs.
Tolerance Movement
Tolerance Movement refers to acceptable print variations per industry standards.
Most tolerance movement is infrequent, and our top-performing printing machines require small margins for movement. As incredibly sharp cutting blades cut hundreds or thousands of paper sheets to size or when pages are bound together, a slight shift in the final alignment or placement can occur during a print run.
However, you can minimise possible movement affecting your prints by following the information in our Print File Setup Guide. Our Proofing Support Page will also teach you how to check your files, and our print experts are always on hand to support you and offer assistance before sending your prints to production.
