Print-Ready PDF from Photoshop or InDesign
Add bleed, keep your text in the safe zone and export a PDF that goes straight through our artwork check
The three numbers to remember
3 mm bleed on every side
Backgrounds, photos and colour panels must run 3 mm past the finished edge. The guillotine can drift by a fraction of a millimetre, and bleed is what stops a thin white line appearing along the edge.
3 mm safe zone inside the trim
Keep text, logos and anything you cannot afford to lose at least 3 mm inside the finished edge. Thin borders need more: 5 mm, or they will look uneven.
300 pixels per inch, CMYK
Set this when you create the document. A 72 ppi file cannot be rescued later, and RGB colours can shift when we convert them for print.
| Product | Finished (trim) size | Your document / PDF page size |
|---|---|---|
| Business card | 85 × 55 mm | 91 × 61 mm |
| A6 postcard | 105 × 148 mm | 111 × 154 mm |
| DL leaflet | 99 × 210 mm | 105 × 216 mm |
| A5 flyer | 148 × 210 mm | 154 × 216 mm |
| A4 flyer | 210 × 297 mm | 216 × 303 mm |
| A3 poster | 297 × 420 mm | 303 × 426 mm |
Any other size: add 6 mm to the width and 6 mm to the height. Custom sizes are shown on each product page.
Photoshop (PSD) to print-ready PDF
Photoshop has no bleed setting, so you build the bleed into the canvas: the document is the finished size plus 3 mm on every side, and the PDF page is that whole canvas.
Start at the right size
File › New. Set the units to Millimetres, then enter the finished size plus 6 mm in both directions (an A5 flyer becomes 154 × 216 mm). Resolution 300 Pixels/Inch, Colour Mode CMYK Colour, 8 bit.
Already designed at the finished size? Image › Canvas Size, tick Relative, add 6 mm to the width and 6 mm to the height with the anchor in the centre. Then stretch or extend your background so it fills the new outer 3 mm. Do not scale the whole design up: that pushes text out of the safe zone.
Add guides for the trim line and the safe zone
View › New Guide Layout. Untick Columns and Rows, tick Margin and enter 3 mm for top, left, bottom and right. Those guides are the trim line, where we cut.
Run it again with 6 mm on every side and untick Clear Existing Guides. The inner guides are your safe zone.
Design to the guides
- Backgrounds, photos and colour panels run right to the edge of the canvas, not to the trim guide.
- Text, logos and borders stay inside the inner (safe zone) guides.
- Keep text as type layers. Do not rasterise or flatten the file: Photoshop PDF keeps type as sharp vector text, but pixels are pixels.
- Check placed photos are at least 300 ppi at the size they are used. Enlarging a small image does not add detail.
Save as Photoshop PDF
File › Save a Copy (older versions: File › Save As). Format Photoshop PDF. Leave Embed Colour Profile ticked and click Save.
In the Save Adobe PDF dialog:
- Adobe PDF Preset: PDF/X-1a:2001. If your version does not list it, use High Quality Print.
- General: untick Preserve Photoshop Editing Capabilities if it is available. It only makes the file bigger.
- Compression: leave the preset as it is (300 ppi, JPEG at Maximum quality is fine).
- Output: if a destination profile is asked for, choose Coated FOGRA39 (ISO 12647-2:2004), the UK and European print standard.
Click Save PDF. Photoshop does not add crop marks, which is exactly what we want.
Check the page size
Open the PDF and check the page size reads the finished size plus 6 mm (see Check your PDF below). If it reads the finished size, the bleed was cropped off: go back to step 1.
Photoshop traps: a 72 ppi document (the default for web presets); Save for Web or Export As, which make RGB screen files; Flatten Image before saving, which turns your text into pixels; and the bleed setting in the Print dialog, which does nothing for a PDF.
InDesign to print-ready PDF
InDesign is built for this. The document stays at the finished size, the bleed is a document setting, and the export adds it to the PDF for you.
Set the bleed on the document
File › New › Document. Enter the finished size as the width and height (an A5 flyer is 148 × 210 mm). Set Margins to 3 mm; they become your safe-zone guides. Open Bleed and Slug and set Bleed to 3 mm on all four sides (the chain icon keeps them equal). Click Create.
Existing document? File › Document Setup, open Bleed and Slug and set 3 mm. The red line that appears outside the page is the bleed edge.
Design to the red line
- Drag backgrounds, photos and colour panels out to the red bleed guide, not just to the page edge.
- Keep text and logos inside the magenta margin guides.
- Open the Links panel and check every image shows an Effective PPI of 300 or more.
- Booklets: build single pages in the Pages panel, in reading order, with a page count that divides by four. Do not build printer spreads.
Clear the preflight
The bottom-left corner of the window should say No errors in green. If it is red, double-click it: the usual culprits are missing links, missing fonts and overset text (a red plus sign on a text frame).
Export the PDF with bleed
File › Export (Cmd+E on Mac, Ctrl+E on Windows). Format Adobe PDF (Print), then Save. In the Export Adobe PDF dialog:
- Adobe PDF Preset: [PDF/X-1a:2001]. It embeds fonts, converts colour to CMYK and flattens transparency. [PDF/X-4:2008] is also fine.
- General: Pages All, export as Pages, not Spreads.
- Marks and Bleeds: leave every printer's mark unticked (no crop marks, no registration marks, no page information). Tick Use Document Bleed Settings; it should show 3 mm on all four sides.
- Output: Colour Conversion Convert to Destination (Preserve Numbers), Destination Coated FOGRA39 (ISO 12647-2:2004).
Click Export.
Check the page size
The PDF page should read the finished size plus 6 mm, with your artwork running to every edge. A two-sided job is a two-page PDF: front first, back second.
Using Illustrator? The same two settings apply: File › Document Setup › Bleed at 3 mm, then File › Save As › Adobe PDF with the [PDF/X-1a:2001] preset and Use Document Bleed Settings ticked under Marks and Bleeds. Outline your fonts first with Type › Create Outlines.
Check your PDF before you upload
Read the page size
- Adobe Acrobat / Reader: File › Properties, then the Description tab shows Page Size.
- Mac Preview: Tools › Show Inspector (Cmd+I).
- Windows: open the PDF in Edge and press Ctrl+I, or use Acrobat Reader as above.
It should match the right-hand column of the size table above: finished size plus 6 mm.
Look at the edges
- Colour and photos touch all four edges of the page. No white frame.
- Nothing you care about sits within 3 mm of where the trim will be, which is 3 mm in from the PDF edge.
- No crop marks or registration marks. We add our own.
- Right number of pages: one per side, in order.
Then let us check it for free
Upload the PDF to our free artwork check. Within minutes it measures the page against the product size, confirms the bleed, resolution, colour and page count, and tells you if anything needs a decision before it prints.
Common mistakes we see
What goes wrong
- • PDF exported at the finished size with no bleed, so the background stops at the trim
- • Background extended by scaling the whole design, pushing text to the edge
- • Crop marks or registration marks left on, so the page is bigger than the product
- • Booklet exported as spreads instead of single pages
- • Photoshop file flattened, so the text prints soft
- • Photos placed at 72 ppi from a website
- • Thin border 1 or 2 mm from the edge, which looks uneven after trimming
What we do about it
- • No bleed: we email you the options (extend the edges, print smaller with a white border, or send a new file). Nothing prints until you choose.
- • Printer's marks: we remove them and tell you.
- • RGB colour: we convert it to CMYK and warn you that colours may shift.
- • Anything else: our studio can make the file print-ready for a small fixed fee.
Stuck?
Send us the PDF, or the PSD or InDesign package, and we will tell you what needs to change. If you would rather we did it, our studio can add the bleed and export the file for you.
Ready to print?
PDF ready? Start your order online.