What is 'bleed'?
'Bleed' is a printing term and refers to the extension to the edges of your page(s), to achieve edge-to-edge printing.
Bleed helps to sustain content/artwork that is situated at the edge of a page, when the document is trimmed at the crop marks (please see image 1 below for reference).
Image 1:
As per the image above, bleed ensures that the edge of your page continues by 3mm across the bleed area i.e. from the 'Page Edge' (black line) to the 'Bleed' (red line), so that when the document is trimmed (at the Crop Marks), the artwork intended at the edge will remain there. This is how edge-to-edge printing is achieved.
As we print on white paper, if 3mm of bleed isn't supplied, strips of white margins can appear due to nothing extending to the bleed area.
How is 'bleed' added?
Bleed must be supplied before the file is uploaded to our site, as it's not automatically supplied after upload.
This extension (of bleed) is typically supplied using design software after the file has been created. However, if you don't have design software, you can supply bleed to a file by creating the document's dimensions from scratch, and adding 6mm to both the height and width dimensions (from the sizes we offer - our default sizes are listed here: https://doxzoo.com/print-sizes-formats).
E.g. A4 = 210 x 297mm will become A4 (w/bleed) = 216 x 303mm
The reason you'll need to add 6mm to the A-size dimension of your document, for bleed, is to account for 3mm added onto both ends of the height (top and bottom), and both ends of the width (left and right). This will cover the four page sides (so that your main document is surrounded by 3mm on every side) (please see image 2 below for reference).
E.g. A6 = 148 x 105mm with bleed will be become A6 (w/bleed) = 154 x 111mm
Image 2:
In the image (2) above^, the 'Final Page Area' is also referred to as the Artwork area. If you're able to add bleed by creating custom page dimensions, please ensure your artwork is in the 'Final Page'/Artwork area (i.e. created 3mm inwards from each side). Otherwise, content remaining in the bleed area is likely to be cut off.
What happens next?
If you've supplied bleed to a file, once you've uploaded your file to the website, you may receive a warning message which recognises your file as having a 'non-standard page size' (due to the file's custom page dimensions).
In this case we advise selecting 'Do not scale' under 'Production Instructions' so that your file's dimensions won't be resized, and will print as intended (please see image below).
Image 3:
For clarification on scaling, please click the following Help article links: Non-Standard page sizes and Scaling Artwork.