What is Bleed? Bleed is ink or toner that extends past the trim of the printed piece to ensure that a sliver of white paper doesn’t show where you don’t intend for it to. Bleeds allow you to run color or graphics to the edge of a page. On a press, the artwork is printed on a large sheet of paper and then trimmed down to size. If you do not allow for a 1/8 of an inch bleed, any misalignment while cutting will result with the artwork not running to the edge of the paper and white paper showing at the edge of your design.   Click for full PDF

Producing a high resolution, press-ready PDF from Adobe Indesign. These guidelines will step you through the process of producing a press-ready PDF suitable for offset printing.  Click for full PDF

Making a press-ready PDF from Quark Xpress.  First use the Check Usage tools to make sure all links and fonts are up-to-date. Go to the top pull-down menu and select:  Utilities > Usage.  All Fonts and Pictures should have a status indicating OK. For complete instructions, including step-by-step screen shots, Click on PDF.

How to package an Indesign file including links and fonts. To submit an Indesign file for high-resolution offset printing, please use these PDF guidlines. This ensures that we receive all of the proper files to produce a high resolution, quality job.  Click for full PDF

Setting up bleed in Adobe Illustrator. Bleed is ink or toner that extends past the trim of the printed piece to ensure that a sliver of white paper doesn’t show where you don’t intend for it to. Setting these up in Adobe Illustrator can be a bit tricky. For step-by-step instructions on how to set up an Illustrator document with bleeds and how to save the file so bleeds are retained, click on the full PDF.   Click for full PDF