I’ve made a brochure for the place I work at. Did all the images etc in photoshop, and then brought that into Illustrator for the text. I’ve made the document just over 8.5 x 11 for a bleed and cropping. My problem is that when it’s printed at this small print shop, illustrator, or the printer shrinks the entire image to fit the 8.5 x 11 paper. It then leaves a 1/4 inch white border around it which then needs to be cropped. There will be about 5000 of these things being printed and it just doesn’t make sense to me, totally makes the bleed pointless. The printer says this is how it works. I believe there’s a way around this, there must be.
How do you calibrate the printer/illustrator so that it prints to the edge of the paper? After all the cropping the brochure is no longer the traditional 8.5 x 11 trifold. What the heck? Should I go to a different printer?
Thanks in advance.
in order for any print shop to print bleed… they MUST print on a larger size paper… ie… for 8.5x11 paper… most printers including the one i use to work for print on 11x17… then they have a pressurized cutter to cut to bleed… this of course will cost you more… but a good printer wont’ cost you that much more for bleed… always check around other printers… this has nothing to do with calibrating the printer or illustrator…
also… your illustrator file (in order for you to print nice bleed edge) must run at least 1/8 inch over 8.5x11 all around. the more the better… but that is usually enough for them…
u should always go and ask several printers for a large print job like this… most printers offer different kinda of deals for different sizes and etc…
hope this helps
thanks lwk, sounds like you have quite a bit of experience with this kinda thing. I did leave a 1/8 bleed, but they were printing on 8.5x11 paper. They actually don’t have a pressure cutter, they were using a papercutter for all the bruchures (don’t think it was 5000, but even still it was a lot). Thanks for the info, I appreciate it. Probably will use a different printer, this was one the client picked, so what can you do.
if your printer is going to use the papercutter MANUALLY… you might as well go somewhere else… definitely a bit difference when you are using that and a pressurized cutter… this sounds like an unprofessional probably corner/printer store… a NORMAL printer store would not do that… you must tell your client in order for them to get any kind of professional brochure you must not cheap out on the printing and finishing quality…
if you guys decide to print from that store… you can also bring the prints elsewhere to get it cut and fold professionally… cut will cost you about dollar per cut per 100sheets (so 4 bucks to cut 100sheets if is full bleed)… and folding is usually about 2cents per sheet and probably a minimum of 2bucks…
