Tri-fold Design 0.125 bleed, margins and paper sizes | by kristoffe
Channel: K. Brodeur
Date: 2022-06-24

When you print something in color to the edge on a tri-fold or any design, you have to make space on the paper being larger than the artwork layout. So 8.5 x 11 is usually 0.125-0.25 inches on all sides top left bottom right TLBR.

(how to fix a print that the printer accidentally resized is written at the bottom of this description.)

So 0.125 L + 0.125 R = 0.250 extra
8.5 + 0.25 = 8.75
11 + 0.25 = 11.25

then the actual paper might be even larger 9 x 12 or some other larger size than the designed page and cutoff bleed. this is so the ink or other process doesn't get caught on the roller when printing and then smear or otherwise defect the paper surface of the next page. newspapers have this as you can see a large paper margin that is cut away from the text.

sometimes people want very tiny text and a lot of it in a page which barely fits, so the margin has to be compromised, but it is what it is. Preferably the margin of design that is empty should the larger the better at times, but life happens.

your designer when I asked if they had a template I could use told me, no I just need a 0.125" bleed, to which I reminded him it's a rough standard but not all places want that.

your designer might have resized this to fit on 8.5 x 11 which is roughly 3% reduction on paper size, and causes a resize in the output. this also causes the perfect placement of 11/3 or 3.33333333... to be at a different place in real folds than the design.

this is why your original design was 8.5x11 made for a regular home or production printer, and needed a proof or single print first as I mentioned before doing 100-200 copies etc to see the result. the printer's error in not keeping it 100% and centering it who said he didn't need crop marks just 0.125 bleed seemed odd but I complied.

please watch this video to carefully understand why things don't resize for folding when they are laid out and each printing company should read 8.5 x 11 with 0.125 additional bleed and auto center but not resize the layout itself. also each printer should provide a template as most do for the per printing spec they might need.

a very easy way to fix your printouts is to ask for a reprint on their cost. or you could simply fold one side of the trifold, crease, and unfold. fold trifold part two, crease, and unfold. then fold back again and put the paper up to a light source, monitor, etc and carefully mark the top and bottom parts that match the design where it would be cut to the margin edge (on both sides, fold, mark, unfold, fold other, mark, unfold).

now with that measurement, you know on all pieces of paper where to cut, and no matter what this design, scaled 10-400% will still be equal no matter what, and you with a paper cutter will have 100 sheets cut in under 10-20 minutes even if your printer made an error.