What is bleed & how do I add it?
Bleed is the printed area that extends beyond the finished trimmed area. It’s not always possible to print all the way to the edge of a sheet of paper or card, so to achieve this effect it is necessary to print a larger area than is required and then trim the paper down to the required size. This also allows for any inconsistencies, paper shrinkage or stretch when trimming the paper. We need an extra 1.5mm of bleed on all edges when you need print that goes right to the edge. Adding bleed is usually easy when using desktop publishing applications but not so straight forward when using office style applications such as Word. We generally find the easiest method is to create your document 3mm larger horizontally and vertically (1.5mm for each side) and place guides in 1.5mm from the edge to indicate the edge of your sheet of paper or card.
