Prepare artwork a printer will accept
Trim, bleed, safe area, 300 ppi, RGB and CMYK, paper and proofs, with the honest limits of Voidcanvas print output and how to work around them.
Intermediate5 min readUpdated 25 September 2026Studio · Print PDF
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Print is less forgiving than screen. Paper is cut with a small margin of error, ink behaves differently from light, and mistakes cost money. This article covers the terms a printer will use, the numbers they expect, and exactly what Voidcanvas can and cannot give them.
Trim, bleed and safe area
Printers print on bigger sheets and cut them down. The guillotine can drift by a millimetre or so, so artwork needs three zones:
| Zone | What it is | Typical size |
|---|---|---|
| Trim | The finished size, where the cut is meant to go. | A5 is 148 × 210 mm; a UK business card 85 × 55 mm (Voidcanvas uses 89 × 51 mm, 3.5 × 2 in). |
| Bleed | Extra artwork beyond the trim, cut away. Any colour or photo that touches the edge must continue into it. | 3 mm each side in the UK and Europe. US printers often ask for 1/8 in (3.175 mm). |
| Safe area | An inner margin. Keep all text, logos and anything important inside it. | At least 3 to 5 mm inside the trim; more on large items. |
Without bleed, a slight drift leaves a hairline of white paper along the edge. Without a safe area, the drift can slice through a phone number.
Crop marks are short lines outside the bleed that show the printer where to cut. They must not touch the artwork.
Resolution for print
Work at 300 ppi at the final printed size for anything read up close. At 300 ppi, 1 mm is about 11.8 px and 3 mm of bleed is about 35 to 36 px. See Image resolution explained for large formats and the maths.
RGB and CMYK
Screens are RGB; presses print CMYK. Conversion happens at some point, and the question is who does it and with which profile. The best person is your printer, using the ICC profile for their press and paper. Expect very bright blues, greens, pinks and oranges to come out duller.
- Black text: ideally prints in black ink only. After a generic conversion, pure RGB black can become a mix of all four inks, which can look slightly soft on very small text if the plates are not perfectly aligned. Keep small print at 7 pt or above and do not reverse fine text out of busy photos.
- Large black areas: printers often want a "rich black" (black plus some cyan, magenta and yellow) so it looks deep rather than grey. Ask them to handle it.
- Colour-critical work: ask for a proof. See Choose colours that work on screen and in print.
Paper
Paper weight is in gsm (grams per square metre). Flyers are commonly 130 to 170 gsm, posters 150 to 200 gsm, business cards 350 gsm and up. Coated paper (gloss, silk, matt) holds ink on the surface: sharper and more saturated. Uncoated paper absorbs ink: softer, darker and less saturated, with a warmer, more natural feel. Dark photos can fill in on uncoated stock, so lift the shadows a little if you know that is the paper.
Proofing
- Print it yourself at 100 per cent on an office printer. Colour will be wrong, but size is not: check text is readable and nothing sits too close to the trim.
- Read every word out loud, especially numbers, dates, prices and web addresses.
- Ask the printer for a PDF proof and check it has not moved anything.
- For colour-critical or large runs, pay for a hard (printed) proof on the real paper.
Print from Voidcanvas: three routes
1. Studio delivery (bleed and crop marks)
This is the fullest print output. In a Studio job, add a print format on the Brief tab (A4 flyer, A5 flyer, A3 poster, Poster 18 × 24 in, Business card or Roll-up banner 85 × 200 cm; each knows its size in mm), build it on the Key visual tab, then on Deliver tick Print PDF and choose Build the package.
- The PDF is at trim size with 3 mm bleed, crop marks outside the bleed, and TrimBox and BleedBox set, which printers' software reads.
- A slug line under the artwork records the client, job, format, version, trim size, bleed and that the file is RGB.
- The bleed is made by repeating the edge pixels of your artwork outwards. Flat colour and simple backgrounds extend cleanly. A detailed photo right at the edge gets streaks in the 3 mm bleed; they are cut away, but if the trim drifts a sliver can show. For photos that bleed, use route 2.
2. Editor export with bleed built in
Export as… (Ctrl+E) with PDF gives a one-page, image-based PDF, filled on white. It has no bleed and no crop marks. For designs over 2000 px on the longest side, the page is sized at 300 dpi; smaller designs are sized at 96 dpi, as a screen document.
- Start from a print preset, for example A5 flyer (1748 × 2480).
- Before you design, choose Image, Canvas size…, tick Relative, and add 72 px to the width and 72 px to the height with the anchor in the centre. That is 36 px, about 3 mm at 300 ppi, on each side.
- Add guides 36 px in from each edge for the trim, and another 59 px in (about 5 mm) for the safe area, using View, Guides, New guide….
- Run backgrounds and photos to the outer edge. Keep text inside the safe area guides.
- Export as PDF and tell the printer: "RGB, 300 dpi, 3 mm bleed included, no crop marks."
3. Brand guideline print PDF
The brand guideline builder's Print PDF makes a multi-page document at 300 dpi with 3 mm bleed and crop marks, on A4 portrait (Document) or 297 × 167 mm (Deck). See Brand guideline exports.
Common problems
- The printer says there is no bleed. You exported from the Editor without adding it. Use route 1, or add it with Canvas size as in route 2.
- A business card PDF from the Editor opens at the wrong size. The Business card preset (1050 × 600) is under 2000 px, so the Editor sizes the page as a screen document. Use Studio delivery, which knows the card is 89 × 51 mm.
- Text looks slightly less crisp than in InDesign. Voidcanvas PDFs are image based: text is rendered to pixels at 300 dpi, not kept as vector type. At normal sizes this prints well; very small text is where you notice it.
- Colours came back duller. Expected for RGB brights. Ask for a proof and adjust.