What is bleed?

Bleed is printing that goes beyond the edge of where the sheet will be trimmed.

In other words, the bleed is the area to be trimmed off. The bleed is the part on the side of a document that gives the printer a small amount of space to account for movement of the paper, and design inconsistencies. Artwork and background colors often extend into the bleed area. After trimming, the bleed ensures that no unprinted edges occur in the final trimmed document ^(Wikipedia)

Digital printing technology does not allow to print to the edges of paper, so to achieve this, it is necessary to print slightly larger area and trim the paper down to the required finished size.

Sample below is a full page A4 size design with bleed and crop marks.

There are two print options for this design. First option is printing on a paper larger than A4 size and trimming from crop marks to A4 size. There will be no white frame and image will be edge to edge. Second option is printing on an A4 size paper and no trimming, there will be white frame around picture.

In PrintPond we need 3mm-5mm from where the cut is to be made.

Check our Guillotine Cut post to learn more about cutting options.