Spine bleed in Publisher

[Sticky Pixels]

I just created a 16 page booklet in Publisher and exported it as pdf with separate pages, as my printer requires. This creates pages with bleed on only three sides, but my printer also wants bleed on all sides of the pages, so on the spine side as well. I don't think this can be achieved other than by modifying all pages and spreads before exporting. Some pages are designed to cover the spread, which makes this a painstaking process.

I seem to remember (it's been a while) that Indesign used to add spine bleed by default, am I right? Is there any way to achieve this in Publisher, or add this as a feature?

[fde101]

4 hours ago, Sticky Pixels said:

Indesign used to add spine bleed by default

Spine bleed is not against the facing page, but rather against the top and bottom of the spine, where it may wrap around the cover.

 

As far as bleed against the facing page edge, that does not appear to be provided by InDesign either, considering this forum topic on the Adobe side:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/bleed-on-spine-edge/m-p/11874932

 

The solution that person came up with was to split the facing pages document into single pages and manually adjust the content of each page to provide bleed.

That makes sense as in a facing pages document the only thing that bleed content could possibly be pulled from would be the other page, which could lead to some rather undesirable results in practice.

[MikeTO]

Version 2.6 will be able to do this - you will be able to create a spread with a gap between the spread's pages. You could create a master page spread like that and use it for all of the document's spreads.

Version 2.6 is in public beta now.

How to participate in the beta: 

Here is a draft of my instructions on how to use the multi-page spread feature - you'd need to create a master spread with an X offset for the right page:

Cheers

[Sticky Pixels]

3 hours ago, fde101 said:

Spine bleed is not against the facing page, but rather against the top and bottom of the spine, where it may wrap around the cover.

Ah, maybe I used the wrong word, English is not my first language. 

 

3 hours ago, fde101 said:

The solution that person came up with was to split the facing pages document into single pages and manually adjust the content of each page to provide bleed.

That's the solution I came up with, but that's hardly practical. It seems to me that my printer is not the only one who requires this so I'm surprised there is no such option in Publisher.

[Sticky Pixels]

3 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Version 2.6 will be able to do this

That is really good news!   I'm not really a beta tester person, but maybe I'll make an exception this time...

[Old Bruce]

8 hours ago, Sticky Pixels said:

I just created a 16 page booklet in Publisher and exported it as pdf with separate pages, as my printer requires. This creates pages with bleed on only three sides, but my printer also wants bleed on all sides of the pages, so on the spine side as well. I don't think this can be achieved other than by modifying all pages and spreads before exporting. Some pages are designed to cover the spread, which makes this a painstaking process.

I am not entirely sure what you are needing. But here goes. Do you have a Facing Pages document? Do you have an Inner setting for the bleed?

This is the way I have things set up and when I export as All Pages i get the "spine bleed" without any need to do anything remotely special.

[Sticky Pixels]

@Old Bruce Thank you for your suggestion, I tried that but this causes bleeds from left and right pages to overlap. On export, part of the left page is included on the right page or vice versa, which is not what you want. You want every page to bleed its own content, not parts of the opposing page.

To clarify: in my booklet every page has a different background color. When I use inner bleed and expand the background color, the opposing page color appears as a bar, twice the width of the bleed zone, at the inner side of the next page.

[Oufti]

34 minutes ago, Sticky Pixels said:

On export, part of the left page is included on the right page or vice versa, which is not what you want. You want every page to bleed its own content, not parts of the opposing page.

If you're not going to print on trimmed single pages bound with a spiral binding or the like, I don't see why you could need an inner bleed? 

Anyway, there is a workaround for those not (yet) wanting to use beta 2.6:

Warning: if you open a file in v.2.6ß and save it, you won't be able to open it again with v.2.5. Make sure you have a safe copy of your file before proceeding! 

[Sticky Pixels]

44 minutes ago, Oufti said:

If you're not going to print on trimmed single pages bound with a spiral binding or the like, I don't see why you could need an inner bleed? 

It's not me, it's my printer who requires it. I'm not gonna argue with them... 

[Chris WH]

I've just hit a similar problem. Consider a booklet having a borderless image on the inside front cover (page 2) so it is oversize, with bleed. When exported as a pdf to send to the printer, each page should have its own bleed and the printer deals with the spine when compositing. What actually happens is the bleed from page 2 spreads into page 3. A partial answer is to position the image so it doesn't extend into the inside bleed area, or crop the image at the inside edge. The pdf still has 3mm of the image on the LH side of page 3 but as this is in the bleed the printer will remove it.

[Hangman]

In 2.6, assuming the inner bleed matches the outer bleed and you don't have a background fill, image, text or table covering both spread pages, there are two options...

Option 1
Convert the facing page document to non-facing and then export as All Pages with Bleed...

Option 2
If the spreads are based on a Master, add space between the left and right-facing Master pages to accommodate the inner bleed on both pages, e.g., for an A4 page with 3 mm inner bleed, offset the right-facing A4 Master page so it has an X value of 220 mm. Then export as All Pages with Bleed...

Content that Covers the Spread
If you have content spanning the spread, e.g., a background image, a heading or a table, the above options won't work unless you repeat the spread content on both pages. If using picture frames to clip the content to the respective pages, ensuring they are mathematically aligned, then both options above will work...

[Oufti]

2 hours ago, Hangman said:

add space between the left and right-facing Master pages to accommodate the inner bleed on both pages, e.g., for an A4 page with 3 mm inner bleed, offset the right-facing A4 Master page so it has an X value of 220 mm.

I presume you intended to write 5 mm for each inner bleed. 

[Hangman]

18 minutes ago, Oufti said:

I presume you intended to write 5 mm for each inner bleed.

Not specifically, standard bleed for an A4 document would be 3 mm but equally it can be set to any value…

[Oufti]

I said that because of the example you gave: 220 mm – 210 mm = 2 × 5 mm, but indeed it can be any value… 

[Hangman]

9 hours ago, Oufti said:

said that because of the example you gave: 220 mm – 210 mm = 2 × 5 mm, but indeed it can be any value… 

I was just giving the pages some breathing room, 216 mm would be the minimum value to avoid any bleed overlap...