Sheffield Printing
In the Heart of Abbeydale
Bleeds and tick marks -
trimming in the right place to make sure you get what you want
Setting up your file with the right bleed and tick marks
Using bleed and tick marks
Bleeds and tick marks help us to produce the printing you want.
Tick marks
Tick marks are your instruction to tell us where to cut the paper we have printed on
The black line round the outside is the edge of the paper.
The small black lines inside tell us where to cut; these are called crop marks or tick marks.
The red area will be cut off.
After cutting the white area is the part that is left trimmed to size.
Bleeds
A bleed is a part of the image which is used to make sure the printing goes right to the edge.
Whilst guillotine cutting is very accurate there is a very small margin of error which can multipy by the time we have trimmed all four edges.
It is not advisable to put parts of the image which you do not want to lose too close to the edge as any variance in cutting could result in part of the image you want being cut off. We advise you use a safety zone of 5mm all round.
Also be careful that you do not put anything you expect to be on the final printed job into the trim area - the red area in the diagram above and the area outside the red line in the diagram below.
The example below is shown as it would be when trimmed to size
Note that some of the type has been cut off!