InDesign

Print the bleed or slug areas

Specify the bleed and slug areas in the Document Setup dialog box. The bleed and slug areas are discarded when the document is trimmed to its final page size. Objects outside the bleed or slug area (whichever extends farthest) are not printed.

When printing, you can override the default location for bleed marks in the Bleed And Slug area of the Marks And Bleed area.

Files saved in PostScript file format allow capable post-processing programs to implement their own variable bleed.

  1. Choose File > Print.
  2. Click Marks And Bleed on the left side of the Print dialog box.
  3. Select either All Printer’s Marks or individual marks.
  4. To override bleed settings in the Document Setup dialog box, uncheck Use Document Bleed Settings and enter values from 0 to 6 inches (or equivalents) for Top, Bottom, Left, and Right (for single-sided documents), or Top, Bottom, Inside, and Outside (for double‑sided documents with facing pages). To extend the offset evenly on all sides of the page, click the Make All Settings The Same icon .
  5. Click Include Slug Area to print objects using the slug area defined in the Document Setup dialog box.
You can preview the bleed and slug areas before printing by clicking the Bleed Preview Mode  or the Slug Preview Mode icon  at the bottom of the Toolbox. (These may be hidden by the Preview Mode icon .)

Marks and Bleed options

The Marks And Bleed area includes the following options:

All Printer’s Marks
Selects all printer’s marks including crop marks, bleed marks, registration marks, color bars, and page information.

Crop Marks
Adds fine (hairline) horizontal and vertical rules that define where the page should be trimmed. Crop marks can also help register (align) one color separation to another. By using together with bleed marks, you can select overlapped marks.

Bleed Marks
Adds fine (hairline) rules that define the amount of extra area to image outside the defined page size.

Registration Marks
Adds small “targets” outside the page area for aligning the different separations in a color document.

Color Bars
Adds small squares of color representing the CMYK inks and tints of gray (in 10% increments). Your service provider uses these marks to adjust ink density on the printing press.

Page Information
Prints the filename, page number, current date and time, and color separation name in 6-point Helvetica in the lower left corner of each sheet of paper or film. The Page Information option requires 0.5 inches (13mm) along the horizontal edge.

Type
Lets you choose default printer’s marks or custom marks (for Japanese pages, for example). You can create custom printer’s marks or use custom marks created by another company.

Weight
Displays possible weights for crop and bleed mark lines.

Offset
Specifies how far from the edge of the page (not the bleed) InDesign will draw printer’s marks. By default, InDesign draws printer’s marks 6 points from the edge of the page. To avoid drawing printer’s marks on a bleed, be sure to enter an Offset value greater than the Bleed value.