Flyers · Glossary
What is bleed?
Bleed is a margin of extra artwork printed beyond where the paper will be cut, usually about three millimetres, so that a slightly inaccurate trim still leaves colour to the edge rather than a thin white line. It only matters when your design runs colour or images all the way to the edge of the page.
Bleed is the answer to a mechanical problem: guillotines are accurate to about a millimetre, and paper shifts. It is not something every flyer needs.
Nuwan Madhusanka · Co-founder
2 min read · Published
Why the cut is never exact
Printing happens on sheets larger than the finished piece, and the stack is trimmed to size afterwards. A stack shifts slightly, and blades wander by a fraction of a millimetre. If your background stops exactly at the trim line, some copies come back with a hairline of white along one edge, which is the most obvious possible printing fault and impossible to fix after the run.
When you do not need it
If your design has a clear margin inside every edge, with nothing but background paper in it, there is nothing to bleed. That is true of a large share of flyers, and it is also more forgiving in other ways: content near the edge is at risk from trimming, from hole punching, and from being covered by a hand holding the leaflet. Designing with a quiet margin removes several problems at once.
Ask before you export, not after
Whether the shop wants bleed, how much, and whether they want crop marks are their conventions rather than universal rules. Ask before you finish the design, because adding bleed to a finished layout means extending backgrounds and reflowing anything near the edge. If the export you can produce has no bleed option, say so up front; many shops will handle it if the design has a margin to work with.
Questions people ask
How much bleed is standard?
About three millimetres on each edge is the common convention for small format work, though some shops ask for five. It is worth asking rather than assuming, since supplying more than they want is harmless and supplying less than they need is a reprint.
What are crop marks?
Thin lines outside the finished area showing where to cut. They sit in the bleed region and are trimmed off. Some shops want them, some prefer a file at exact size with bleed and no marks, because their equipment positions the cut itself.
What is the safe area?
The region inside the trim where you can be confident nothing will be cut off, usually a few millimetres in from the edge. Keeping text and logos inside it is the other half of the bleed conversation, and it matters even on designs with no bleed at all.
Do I need bleed for a digital flyer?
No. Bleed exists because paper is cut. A flyer that will only ever be seen on a screen has no trim and no need for extra artwork beyond the canvas.
What if my design has a white background?
Then there is nothing to bleed, because a slightly off cut still leaves white against white. This is one reason a white or light background is the forgiving choice for a first print run.
Make one with flyers
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Create a flyer with OneCraftRelated questions
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- A4 flyer size in pixelsA4 is 210 by 297 mm. In pixels it depends on the density: 1240 by 1754 at 150 DPI is the practical working size for a flyer.
- Instagram post and story sizesA square post is 1080 by 1080 and a story is 1080 by 1920. What the safe area is, why the crop happens, and how one design becomes both.
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .