How to Add a Bleed in Adobe Illustrator

Adding a bleed to your artwork is a must when preparing your artwork for printing. Without a bleed, there's a good chance that your printed copies may not look as you expect them to.

In this article, we'll learn more about bleeds in Illustrator. We'll also learn how to add a bleed in Adobe Illustrator.

What Are Bleeds in Adobe Illustrator?

The bleed is part of the artwork that goes beyond the edge of the document where the sheet will be trimmed down without having any unwanted white margin. By adding bleeds, you are extending colors and elements beyond the original dimensions of your artwork.

If your artwork or the document does not have any bleed you may end up having the edges slightly cut off or in some cases, you may have white strips around the edges of the design work.

What is the Purpose of Bleed in Illustrator?

The purpose of bleeds is to ensure that no white strip remains or shows at the edge of the print document when it is trimmed down to size. In printing, the design elements are printed on a large sheet. After printing, it is needed to be trimmed down to size. The trimming process is not always 100% precise.

There are slight chances of fault in cutting or misalignment while cutting down to size. If you do not add bleed to your document, your design elements will not reach the edge of the printing sheet.

Adding bleeds makes the design element go off the page/sheet like there is no hard line or boundary on the edge. In a nutshell, bleed helps your document to get printed out without having unwanted white borders around the edges of your printed copy.

Adding Bleeds to a New File/Document

Step 1

Go to File, and select New to create a new document.

Step 2

After you click on New, a dialog box will appear named “New Document”. In this window, you'll choose the size of your document, the unit measurement, bleed, color mode for the file, and many other advanced options.

Input the bleed value in the bleed section. The standard bleed value is 0.125 inches. However, if you're sending the document away for printing, follow the instructions of the printer or print lab. They may vary slightly.

Step3

Once you're done with the settings for the new document, click on Create. Your file will be created with the bleed added to it. You can see a red line around the document, which indicates that bleeds have been added to the file.

Adding Bleeds to an Existing File

Sometimes it happens that you already designed your document, but you forgot to add bleed to it. Don't worry if this happens to you because you can add bleed to your file anytime you want.

Step 1

Open your artwork first.

Step 2

Go to the top toolbar, select File, and then select Document Setup. You can also open the document setup using the shortcut key Ctrl + Alt + P (PC) or Cmd+Option+P (Mac).

Step 3

After clicking on the document setup, a new window will appear on your screen. Select which unit want to measure the bleed with. Here I have chosen a different unit from the earlier one. I selected Points to measure the bleed. A bleed of 9 points here is equivalent to 0.125 inches.

Step 4

Once you put the value in the bleed section, click Ok to save the setup.

Exporting Files with Bleeds

When exporting files as PDFs, you need to follow a different method to add bleed to the document. You'll add the bleed while saving the file as PDF.

Step 1

Go to File from the overhead menu, and select Save As to save the file. You can also use the shortcut key Shift+ Ctrl+ S (PC) or Shift+Cmd+S (Mac) to use this function.

Step 2

There will be a Save As window after you select ‘Save As.' Type a name for the file in the File Name box.

Step 3

You need to select the file type as PDF. You can change the file type in the Save As Type box, which is located underneath the File Name option. Clicking on ‘Save As Type' will provide you with a drop-down menu. Select Adobe PDF (*.PDF) from the drop-down menu.

Step 4

Click on Save. A new window will appear on your screen right after you chose to save the file.

Step 5

In the new window, select Mark and Bleeds from the left menu. Now in this section, you'll see two parts, Marks and Bleeds.

Step 6

Under the Marks section, click on Trim Marks, and under the Bleeds section, click on Use Document Bleed Settings.

Step 7

Click on Save as PDF, and your document will be saved with bleed.

Adding bleeds to your document is a must when it is going for printing. Follow any of the methods mentioned in this, and your file is ready for printing.