Generate bleed for irregular shapes

In pdfToolbox 10, you were able to create bleed for 'regular' pages by various methods like:

  • Adding mirrored images
  • Repeating the last color pixel at the edges inside Trimbox
  • Mirroring the page content

pdfToolbox 11 introduced a Fixup for generating bleed for irregular pages. Using the Fixup 'Generate bleed for irregular shapes', you can create a shape from the settings specified in the "Shape definition" setting. The Pixel Repetition method is always used here. It uses the last pixel of a PDF document to generate the bleed.

A predefined Fixup is available in the "Prepress, Color and Transparency" library: "Generate 5mm bleed at dieline (Processing Steps)".

Fixup "Generate bleed for irregular shapes"

1. Repeat only

Here you can specify which content you want to repeat to generate the bleed. Please note: The Fixup always uses Pixel Repetition to generate the bleed. In the screenshot above, the last pixel of the 'Visible page content' would be repeated.

2. Except spot colors

Specified spot colors are excluded. Here you can set, for example,  that the Cutline is not taken into account for the bleed generation.

3. Processing Steps objects (PS)

Here you can specify whether or not objects on a Processing Steps layer should be taken into account for the bleed gerneration or not.

4. Resolution (ppi)

Here you can specify a resolution in ppi for the generated bleed. 300 ppi is the default and should be used for print products.

5. Smart Resolution for page dimensions > 75 cm

Enables auto adjustment of the resolution for PDF files with at least one page dimension greater than 75 cm. Read more about Smart Resolution here.

6. Colorspace

The bleed can be generated in a number of color spaces. The following settings for the "Colorspace" parameter are available:

  • OutputIntent if present or CMYK (CMYK will be used if no OutputIntent is present)
  • CMYK (any spot colors will be converted to CMYK)
  • CMYK, keep spot colors (A DeviceN color space is created so that spot colors are preserved. Should always be used when objects with a spot color are close to the Trim Box)
  • RGB (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) , all colors that are neither sRGB nor plain RGB will be converted to sRGB
  • Grayscale, all non-grayscale colors will be converted to grayscale

The checkbox "Suppress empty color channels (slower)" will only be enabled if "CMYK, keep spot colors" is selected as color space. If this checkbox is checked, the Device N color space of the generated bleed will contain only the colors that appear in the rendered image. Using this option may slow down processing.

7. Checkboxes

Tag generated images with ICC-profile: If a document does not contain an output intent, the bleed can be tagged with the default ICC profile used for rendering. 
Set overprint: This checkbox should remain unchecked in most cases. It should only be activated if a cut contour is included in the document. By activating the checkbox, the new bleed will be set to overprint so that the cut contour is not covered.
Create bleed behind current page content: This checkbox should only be activated if bleed already exists in the document and you just want to extend it.
Create on layer: The bleed can be created on a new layer.

8.  Shape definition

Define the configuration of the shape for creating the bleed. 4 predefined "Shape Definitions" are available in the drop-down list, which use the rendered appearance of the page content to generate the bleed around it (you also have the opportunity to configure your own custom shape definition).

  • "From tracing page content (including white areas)": White areas are considered to be part of the rendered page content (not transparent areas that appear to be white because they show through the white background). Bleed is created only at the outer boarders of a shape.
  • "From tracing page content (including white areas) with inner boarders":  White areas are considered to be part of the rendered page content (not transparent areas that appear to be white because they show through the white background). Bleed is created at the inner and outer boarders of a shape.
  • "From tracing page content (excluding white areas)": White areas are not considered to be part of the rendered page content (not transparent areas that appear to be white because they show through the white background). Bleed is created only at the outer boarders of a shape.
  • "From tracing page content (excluding white areas) with inner boarders": White areas are not considered to be part of the rendered page content (not transparent areas that appear to be white because they show through the white background). Bleed is created at the inner and outer boarders of a shape.

9. Set BleedBox

Here you can specify whether the BleedBox should be set again after bleed generation. If the BleedBox is already correctly defined in the document, the setting "ignore" can be used. If there is no bleed in the document yet, "Always (override existing)" should be set, or if there is no BleedBox at all, select "If missing".

10. Offset of bleed

How much the source area for the bleed generation should be adjusted. Negative values move the edges towards the center of the page, positive values move the edges outside the page. An offset is useful when the page content ends just before the page edges, leaving a thin visible white line after the bleed is added. For this use case, a small offset (such as -0.2 mm) can be specified.

11. Apply to

Here you can use a filter to specify to which pages the bleed generation is applied.

Example

(Erliest version with full support for “2.5 mm bleed for irregular shapes.kfpx” is pdfToolbox 15)

You can watch all this and more about 'bleed' in the video below: