Inner bleed functions differently than inner margin

[Walter Nissen]

This is a long one, please bear with me. I would like to design spreads but export pages. The margins do this perfectly. For illustration purposes, let's say we want to set the following margins: Inner 0.2", Outer 0.4, Top 0.6, Bottom 0.8. This makes it easy to see what is going on because they are all different. 

I have added little arrows and captions to show how the inner margin is right next to the fold.

To start, I have no bleeds at all.

When exported as pages, it is like I expect, with bleeds and without bleeds is the same document, half a letter-sized piece of paper. So far so good. 

Now let's add the bleeds, with the same distinctive dimensions as the margins. Note that the outer, top, and bottom bleeds are visible, but the inner is not there.

When we export, then, the inner bleed is then taken from the facing page (see pink stripe far right). The overall page size is correct but that bleed is only usable for a saddle-stitched publication. My publisher wants the pages with their own bleeds, not the bleed of the adjacent page.

In order to fake this, I had to change my page size. (Dear lord that was painful, the only thing that saved me was my disciplined use of templates. Avoid cut and paste whenever you possibly can, kids!) If you widen the page by twice the bleed, set the inner margin to encompass both the margin and the bleed, and set the inner bleed to 0, the BleedBox vs. TrimBox is wrong, but the dimensions and image are at least correct. 

 

Voila, both margins and bleeds!

I think this is actually a bug with the inner bleeds. I would like to be able to choose between no inner bleed for saddle-stitched (the default), and an actual inner bleed for perfect bound. Then when you press ^W to preview with and without bleeds, in the latter case the two pages would move closer together, reflecting the trim of the bleed. And I wouldn't have to worry about mucking around with my page size at the last minute. The original .afpub files and PDF exports are all attached but this is easy to demonstrate.

If I've missed something and there is a way to get the bleeds to do what I want by doing it the right way, I would love to hear from you!

Page size.afpub Page size fake interior bleed.afpub Page size fake interior bleed.pdf Page size no interior bleed Page Export.pdf Page size no interior bleed.afpub Page size Page Export without Bleed.pdf Page size Page Export with Bleed.pdf Page size with bleed Page Export with Bleed.pdf Page size with bleed Page Export without Bleed.pdf Page size with bleed.afpub

[NathanC]

Hi @Walter Nissen,

Regarding if this behaviour is a bug, the inner bleed behaviour on facing pages exporting as all pages is a topic that has been brought up a few times in the past, however the current behaviour when exporting facing pages with inner bleed as 'All Pages' to PDF is as expected, see the comment from TonyB in the thread below for reference.

 

On 7/2/2019 at 11:34 AM, TonyB said:

With a facing page document, then this is expected. If you have content that goes across spread and it will be printed as a booklet/book then this is fine as the printer will impose the pages with the inner bleed removed.

If you don't need to have content that goes across the facing spread (both left and right pages) then switch the document type to non facing.

 

I've also linked another thread below which discusses this topic:

If you have any feedback on how the current functionality with inner bleeds can be improved, feel free to post on the feedback section.  🙂