Bleed and trim,
sized right.
Enter a trim size and a bleed amount and get the file setup size, a safe-zone margin and a diagram of how the three lines nest inside each other.
A reference tool, not a quote. Sizes and rules of thumb here are general prepress and USPS conventions — confirm specifics for your job by calling (763) 475-1826 or requesting a quote.
Bleed shown here follows standard prepress convention (1/8 in. bleed is typical; confirm for unusual finishing).
Setting up a file that needs a different bleed than usual? Ask before you export it.
Request a quote Call (763) 475-1826Why a printed piece needs bleed at all
A press prints on a full sheet, and the finished piece is cut out of it afterward on a guillotine cutter. Cutting a stack of paper is never perfect to the thousandth of an inch, so if your background color or photo stops exactly at the trim line, a hair of drift in either direction leaves a thin white sliver of unprinted paper along that edge. Bleed is the fix: you extend the artwork past the trim line by a fixed amount, so the cutter always slices through printed area no matter which way it drifts.
The safe zone is the opposite margin
Anything that has to stay fully readable — body text, a logo, a phone number — needs the reverse protection: kept back from the trim line by a margin of its own, so the same cutting tolerance can never clip a letter or crowd a logo against the edge. That is the safe zone this calculator recommends, measured inward from the trim line rather than outward from it.
Both numbers are conventions, not laws of physics, and a job with unusual finishing — a die cut, a fold close to an edge, an oversized sheet — can call for more of either. When in doubt, ask before you export the file.
File ready?
Send it over.
Upload the artwork and prepress will check it against these numbers before anything goes to plate. Or call (763) 475-1826 with questions.