PDF Export Bleed Issue in Affinity Publisher

[Marcocampo]

 Affinity Publisher ignores specific bleed settings when using a page-facing layout for a brochure. This is the layout:

In my case, the setting on the inner sides is "0", the rest is "3". Page size is 148 mm x 148 mm, which should give a PDF 151 x 154 mm including bleed, exporting a single page.
But the exported PDF has a size of 154 x 154 mm, which means it ignores the "0". And thats what the PDF exports looks like for page 2 (left) and 3 (right) …

Page 2 shows 3 mm of the right page. And Page 3 shows 3 mm of the right page.

As some printers ask for such files with a zero-bleed, it would be nice to have one.

If you want to reproduce that yourself, here are the files (afpub, pdf, screenshot) as DMG in my dropbox:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zy5hpqtx6evbhdr/19_09_29_Affinity Publisher Bleedtest singlepage export.dmg?dl=0

cheers, Marcus

 

 

[Hangman]

I would 'guess' (but don't know for sure) this is to allow for crop marks to be added? Exporting as a jpeg gives you the expected result but equally exporting as a jpeg doesn't give you the option to include automatic crop marks.

One observation, shouldn't the 74mm measurements on your graphic appear as 39mm?

 

 

[MikeW]

Export more or less is correct using All Pages whether crop marks are present or not using Windows. Screen shot is using crop marks but it doesn't matter. MM measurement units at the bottom.

[Hangman]

Which is also the case on macOS. It seems strange you can't export individual pages and get the same result, i.e. if you export 'All Pages' but enter page 2, you have the issue @Marcocampo highlights regardless of crop marks.

[MikeW]

10 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Which is also the case on macOS. It seems strange you can't export individual pages and get the same result, i.e. if you export 'All Pages' but enter page 2, you have the issue @Marcocampo highlights regardless of crop marks.

Yeah, well that sucks...so I guess one needs to use All Pages and delete pages one doesn't want in a pdf editor until such time as Serif fixes the issue.

[Marcocampo]

Thats right. 39 mm instead of 74 mm, sorry. Thanks for pointing that out . Forgot to say that I'm on a Mac running 10.14.6.

Was a bit dizzy after a long day and made that layout based out of the brochure, I'm working on and where I discovered that. Honestly, I didn't try the corp marks, because most print services prefer to work without them. Anyway, thanks for your replies, and its no big deal to work around that for now.

But let me say: Publisher is awesome, and nice to use! Thank you guys for this excellent modern software, this is the right way. Love it! The whole suite!

best, Marcus

[Marcocampo]

A quick update on this. I tried the cropmarks ths morning, but this changed anything for me.
Then I tried different bleed values with the same result. When using facing pages the inner value is always the same as the outer (reference is the outer), no matter if top-bottom are the same or not. As mentioned before, this ONLY happens when exporting single pages.

To get a "0" inner bleed, I had to set the outer to "0", which worked.

This is always page 2, a left side page.

best, Marcus

[Marcocampo]

Just another thought on that. This thing is only relevant for an export of single / separated pages export. But this option does not exist in the PDF export dialogs.

When you print/export spreads instead, this doesn't matter – and all works flawlessly. For my situation (producing some brochures with 12 to 24 pages) its a bit different, because I have to deliver that 0-bleed to avoid errors in an automatic workflow. This means …

1. Export every single page manually, and then crop those (even on the right side, odd on the left) in Acrobat. No big deal, but annoying. And this takes some considerable time.
2. Or export all pages (and in this case every bleed setting is correctly done, as mentioned before), but this time I have to split that pdf in up to 24 files. Takes also time and in the end makes no big difference to the first approach. 

Would be nice to have that fixed/solved. So my wishlist for PDF export for now is:

• Feature: Ability to export/write a PDF export in separated files for every page into a surrounding folder named "filename-export"
• Fix: Ability to get a zero-bleed on the inner edge when exporting a brochure layout in separated PDF files

Thanks, Marcus

[Marcocampo]

And another update with some workarounds:

A workaround to get separated PDF files to use Acrobat > Tools > Pages > Split files , which gives you what I'd like to get out directly of Affinity Publisher. Be sure that the maximum number of pages per file is 1.

Back to  Affinity Publisher Brochure :

If you export a single page with a given pagenumber, it dosn't work (wrong bleed)

If you export that single page as "Actual page", it works (correct bleed)

It's ok for now, that works for me, so far. 

[Hangman]

Another workaround could be to set up a simple Automator Quick Action. This would allow you to export the entire document as a pdf using All Pages and then simply right-click the exported pdf and select the Quick Action from the Services menu at the bottom of the context menu. Possibly no quicker than Split Pages in Acrobat but maybe saves a step.

[Chris Patmore]

I had the same issue today, but without using crop marks as the PDF was for Magcloud print-on-demand. Even cropping in Acrobat didn't help as the excess part that was cropped off was still in the final file, just not visible, so would still give the same error message when uploading to Magcloud. There are lots of workarounds, but workarounds aren't solutions to the inherent problem. I ended up importing the PDF (a 64 page magazine) into an InDesign document and making a new PDF from there that did work, which kind of defeated the purpose of using Publisher so I could move away from using InDesign. It seems that PDF import and export is the weakest link in an otherwise decent programme, especially for a version 1, but it is one that is going to stop professional designers from fully embracing it. 

[Marcocampo]

Just an Update on this:

this issue is completely solved in AP 1.8.0-518. Thanks Affinity Team !