Full bleed for commercial printing

A commercial printer will want 1/8" for the trim and an additional 1/8" before any text starts. So, you will want to create a page size that is 8.75x11.25. Make sense?

Experiment by creating a pdf of your job, to see if the graphics extending beyond the Page's borders are creating the correct "Bounding Box" extending beyond the page edge.

If your printer has Macs they probably will also have Pages, as it is not a huge investment. As to whether they will accept the job as a Pages file that they can output directly to their RIP, only they can say.

If you are going to a commercial offset printer you should always discuss the job with them before starting. Let us know what the answer is.

What would a commercial printer prefer?

Like commercial designers, commercial printers have different equipment.

I am creating an 8.5 x 11 document with full bleeds. Can I use the 8.5 templates or do I need to create a page layout that is 8.7 x 11.2?

Define the design space in the final form, for instance, United States letter. Then use the dialogs for BleedBox and TrimBox in the PDF/X-3 filter to define the additional area with the information supplied by the specific print shop you select. The PDF/X-3 filter is a part of the Apple ColorSync Utility. Select the remaining settings - including an OutputIntent - then name the filter and enable the filter for your process. Important notice: the default OutputIntent is for a very, very small colour gamut, SWOP. If you are not printing on thin and gray magasine stock, pick an OutputIntent with a larger gamut. Talk to your printer who will be able to help you. If your printer has no idea of PDF/X-3, rendering specifications, OutputIntents or ICC colour management, you are definitely talking to the wrong printer.

/hh

I cannot find these anywhere in the Pages help menu or anywhere else. (BleedBox TrimBox and PDF/X-3) Are they in Pages? If so, where?

In the Utilities folder, find the Apple ColorSync Utility. Do yourself a favour and drag it to the Dock in order to have it on hand. It's as central to the operating system as the Displays control panel (which controls colour matching to your screen), or the Character Palette (which controls the standard character specifications you actually write), for instance.

In the ColorSync Utility, select the Filters menu and identify the Generic PDFX-3 filter. You will want to modify this filter with information from the printer you pick. An intelligent printer would publish on his web site the ICC profile for the printing conditions he supports as well as the PDF/X-3 settings for his postprocessing machinery.

An intelligent Apple management would work with intelligent printers on a country by country basis to help Apple customers. Apple development has made this possible, but Apple management is not that intelligent, unfortunately. Possibly, Apple management does not use Apple Pages to produce Apple advertising - who knows.

/hh

Hi
I am having the same problem. Need the image on my A4 trifold flyer to bleed. I have found the Filter and created one in the colorsync utility but don't know hte units used for the bleed. Also I don't know how to use the filter in Pages. I want to save a high resolution document with images that bleed outside the A4 area. HELP!

I am having the same problem. Need the image on my A4 trifold flyer to bleed. I have found the Filter and created one in the colorsync utility but don't know hte units used for the bleed. Also I don't know how to use the filter in Pages. I want to save a high resolution document with images that bleed outside the A4 area. HELP!

Good, you are getting there.

The units for the bleed and trim you have to get from the print shop. It is impossible for the ColorSync application (ColorSync is a faceless, scriptable application and not a control panel) to predict the amount of additional space for the many, many machine configurations. You also need to get info on the ICC profile for the OutputIntent, and get info on the transparency flattening. You see, you are submitting a PDF printing master that supports both transparency and ICC imaging to a PostScript process that supports neither transparency nor ICC imaging. You need to take responsibility for the transparency as well as for the colour space conversion. I'm sorry, this is not simple. Basically, you are buying something, and the print shop should specify what it is you are being sold. This is what the PDF/X-3 filter is for: Permitting the print shop to provide the specification to prospective customers.

/hh

Henrik,

What about the tinsy little problem of being able to rename and save the final filter in ColorSync Utility?

Not to mention the measurements issue.

What about the tinsy little problem of being able to rename and save the final filter in ColorSync Utility? Not to mention the measurements issue.

It is not my problem and I am not promoting Apple product. I am simply supplying the formally correct information on where the user interface is to build out a printing master, and what the parts of the user interface are for.

I have previously put pressure on Apple to upgrade the default separation from the Apple Color LaserWriter to US SWOP. I failed to get Apple to support ISO 12647 as default separation, I suppose because GretagMacbeth and Heidelberg did not want Apple to do so.

By the bye, it is no solution to suggest 'pro applications' for PostScript imaging which does not support the Unicode file format or the ICC file format in the first place. The solution is to get character-glyph imaging and colour-colourant imaging working from the ground up.

/hh

Back in the 80's in Australia, when breathalising first came in, and it became an issue not to get drunk when you went out and had to drive, a non-alcoholic drink called Claytons was put on the market. It looked, tasted and smelt something like scotch.

It was such a joke that everything that looked, smelt and tasted or sounded like the real thing, but wasn't, got called a Claytons.

I think we can pronounce this a Claytons "solution".

Back in the 80's in Australia, ...

Whether we are talking XML or ICC imaging or Unicode imaging, the world of laser imaging in the nineteen-eighties is technically obsolete. The level of enduser education that it takes to wire workflows into one another is rising higher and higher and the learning curve is a harder and harder to climb.

That said, the UI should be simpler.

But it needs to work and it needs to fulfil the brief.

Bleeds are bleeds, spot colors are spot colors, as are spot varnishes, diecuts, slugs, perforations etc, and all the other real world details of print and publishing.

If you get into the car and you can't find the brakes, accelerator and steering wheel you are not going anywhere except sitting in the driveway at home, making +brrrm brmmm+ noises.

It is no point talking about them as if they exist vaguely "somewhere".

How do InDesign or QuarkXpress, in your view, fail where Pages succeeds?

Bleeds are bleeds, spot colors are spot colors, as are spot varnishes, diecuts, slugs, perforations etc, and all the other real world details of print and publishing.

Bleeds and trims are device dependent. One needs information about the dimensions the device expects. Dies and perforations are device dependent, too. Spot colours and spot varnishes belong either in obsolete offset machines that lay down black plus one spot using less than four printing units (but cannot lay down process takes four printing units), or in highly specialised packaging printing with more than four printing units where ICC imaging is not used in the first place or is only selectively used.

Again, if one has the idea of defining a spot colour in the printing master, then one needs to have a certain kind of colour device to image that printing master, that is, a device that is capable of laying down custom colourants. This rules out an increasingly large class of colour printing devices - desktop colour printers to begin with, and digital colour presses also.

How do InDesign or QuarkXpress, in your view, fail where Pages succeeds?

By shielding the everyday enduser from device dependence. Not that I am sure who and what Pages is intended for, and whether it succeeds in such intententions?

/hh

*Bleeds and trims* are pretty standard and if any adjustment needs to be made to suit the press the printer makes them. Why must you be first admitted into the secret cabal of the +Opus Druckerei+ who then initiates you into digital ****, just to make simple adjustments?

*Spot colours and spot varnishes* are used in real life quality offset to achieve accurate color, fine lines and high finish, and are even sometimes necessary in the inferior world of digital presses.

Why do you think the *"shielded" everyday QuarkXpress & InDesign endusers* are begging for the opportunity to struggle with matters that only get in the way of producing virtually 99% of all printed matter on this planet?

If you want a lousy, expensive and slow digital result go for it. Just don't assume it is the only way to go.

Sigh, there's a reason that there's no documentation. What people want from ICC imaging is stuff like spot colour and preservation of the black plane in separations. There have been miles and miles and miles of mail on preserving the black plane in separations which is meaningless if one does not make the first mistake which is to separate before one knows the printing paper. Similarly, there have been miles and miles of mail on inserting control characters for joiners and non-joiners in Unicode in order to produce typographic ligatures which is meaningless because according to ISO-IEC 10646, Zero Width Joiner and Zero Width Non-Joiner cannot be ignored in searching and sorting, so inserting these control characters kills content-based operations.

Overall, the desire not to distinguish content-based operations from appearance-based operations is the biggest hurdle in understanding computerised communication. After trying to teach this for two decades, it still seems as hard to put across as at the start.

/hh