Gradient bigger than artboard to include bleed

[SeanT]

This should be easy, but I've never used designer before, so bear with me.

I have a b/w image which I want to superimpose on a gradient background. I made a new project with artboard, and made a pixel layer bigger than the artboard (tutorial said stuff overlaps the edges of the artbord, but is still there!), in order to cover the bleed. Yet when I export to test, with bleed marks switched on, the gradient clearly doesn't reach them. How do I sort my blead out please?

[MikeW]

Does your document setup include a bleed amount?

[SeanT]

Yep - 2mm all around

 

[MikeW]

I am assuming a PDF output?

Using the More button in the PDF export dialog, did you check to Include Bleed?

[SeanT]

Yep, did that - but the crop marks point to white space, and they should cut the gradient overlap, surely

 

[walt.farrell]

Can you provide us with a sample .afdesign file that shows the problem, Sean?

[MikeW]

Trim marks are typically offset, bleed marks typically are near, touching or slightly into the bled item(s).

But those statements really only apply to applications that have input settings. Affinity products only use trim marks and there are no user adjustments possible. 

[SeanT]

OK, so what I've assumed were crop marks (as in, targets for cutting, so should lie within the bleed area) aren't at all - they always line up with the edge of the document. I just printed out a pdf and measured them. So what does setting up a document with a (eg) 3mm bleed achieve, if it isn't represented in the final pdf? I still had to manually 'oversize' my document, and may as well have not set up the bleed in the first place. Slightly confused.

Walt, in Test1 I overlaid the image on a gradient, in a doc set up as 65x240 with 3mm bleed. those trim marks I thought were crop (bleed) marks, so I was confused that they didn't intersect the gradient. So, I did test3 - which is a gradient larger than the artboard, but nothing else. the trim marks now intersect the gradient as I had expected. When I took that doc and added an image, the pdf output was constrained within the trim marks again. I haven't included an image of that, because frankly by that point I'd lost the plot. 
Anyway, I've worked around it, but am left feeling that the bleed issue may as well be completely ignored if we can't see it on proofs or final artwork, and have to manually oversize to take it into account. Ahem. i'm off to look out my Crayola set...

Test3.pdf

Test1.pdf

[MikeW]

Trim = Crop depending on what application or print service one is using. They are used as interchangeable words, though trim marks is more accurate.

You always need to extend any item intended to bleed so it extends past the page edge. So in the Test3 pdf, you did just that with the gradient. However, either bleed was not set to output in the Test1 pdf -or- the gradient did not extend off the page.

This would be much easier for people if Serif had just included bleed indication (often a red rectangle that does not output) from the beginning and in their infinite wisdom displayed items off the artboard-type of documents. But they didn't. One can add a rectangle around a page so one can view the bleed amount. But it should be either deleted when no longer needed or its visibility turned off when no longer needed or before generating a PDF so it does not end up in the PDF. In the screen shot below, I have a 4" x 6" page. I have added a red rectangle around the page that is 0.25" larger than the page and centered on the page. Then the item I wanted to bleed, the yellow rectangle was added.

When trimmed, this page will be 4" x 6".

Your page size always needs to be the size that will be trimmed. It should never be larger/smaller.