PDF export and bleed

[ygoe]

I don't get it. I've created a document with two artboards. Each of them has a final paper size of 85x55 mm (front and back side). The bleed should be 3 mm on top of that. So my document and artboards have now 91x61 mm with 3 mm margin and 3 mm bleed on each side.

Now I need to export that as PDF with cut marks. But whatever I select, I get the cut marks at 91x61 mm, not at 85x55 mm. What should I do to make this basic print export task work? I mean, in Adobe Illustrator this always worked intuitively and never caused any problems or even questions. In Affinity designer I stumble over this thing every single time. Most of the time I didn't care because I didn't need cut marks, but now I do and they just don't work.

Please advise now and fix in a future version.

Affinity Designer 1.6.5 on Windows 10.

[MickRose]

Hi ygoe - the artboard size must be 85 x 55 for both. 3mm bleed is fine. Margins are purely for your benefit and have no effect on the final PDF. When saving as PDF make sure you have ticked More, Include Bleed. That should give trim marks at 85 x 55.

[ygoe]

But when I set the artboard size to the cut size, I can't see what's in the bleed area anymore. How should I control what is placed there when it's not accessible?

[MEB]

Hi ygoe,
You have to create a small rectangle (stroked, not filled) to simulate the bleed limit (make sure it's placed outside the artboard layer in the Layers panel otherwise you will not be able to see it either). Bleed preview will come in a future update.

[MickRose]

Sound like you have View/View Mode/Clip to Canvass checked. If you uncheck that you should see the whole canvas content , not just your artboard. What you can't see is the bleed box so you have to create a box for that if you want.

[MEB]

MikeRose,
That option is greyed out for artboard based documents (it's always enabled by default).