Adding Bleed to a Publisher Document for Commercial Printing
You may need to add bleed to your Publisher design in order to print with a commercial printer. Watch the tutorial video below and learn how to add bleed to your template in Microsoft Publisher.
Watch
Guides
You will find this process easier if you turn on your guides. Go to View and select Boundaries and Guides.
Document Size
Go to File > Page Setup and customize your document size to create a guide for the bleed area. You want to add 1/8” (.125″) to each side of the document. For example, if you are working with an 8.5″ x 11″ brochure, your new document size will be 8.75″ x 11.25″.
Adjust graphics
You can now begin creating your bleed. Extend any graphic that touched the edge of the original document to the current page size.
If your graphic is a vector, you can pull the edges out without pixelating the graphic. However if your graphic is a JPG photograph, you cannot stretch the image without distortion. Use the crop tool or use a larger image.
Note: Your fold lines will not change, so only extend the graphics touching the edges.
Finish
Continue adjusting any additional pages. Once you are finished, return the document size to the original page size.
You will see that you now have 1/8” of each graphic extending past the document edge.
Graphic Design Resources
View business marketing templates from StockLayouts.
Learn more about customizing templates with Graphic Design Tutorial Videos.
Try a free sample and see how easy templates are to customize!
Thanks for the help! It was great, I only wish you had gone one step further to show me how to convert this to a useable document for our print company with full bleeds. Is JPG or PDF better, what special setting are needed for the conversion, etc.
Thanks a million!!
Michelle
January 10, 2013
Thank you for your inquiry. To save your PDF for commercial printing, follow the steps below:
1. In your Publisher document, go to File > Save As.
2. Select PDF as the file ‘Save as type’
3. Click the Options button.
4. In the Publish Options window, double check that ‘High quality printing’ is selected.
5. Click the Print Options… button.
6. Change the Paper Size to something large enough to account for your bleed and crop marks.
Example: For an 8.5 x 11 document, try 11 x 17.
7. Under Printer’s marks select the check boxes for Crop marks, Allow bleeds and Bleed marks.
8. Click Ok to exit out of Print Options.
9. Click Ok to exit out of Publish Options.
10. Save your PDF file to a location on your computer.
Joanna
January 15, 2013