Why is a correct margin important?

We understand that you want to get the most out of your printed document. You've worked hard on the text, images and overall setup. Therefore it is even more important to have the correct margin!

The Margin

The margin of a file is important to keep the print as beautiful as possible. The margin of every product is a bit different. The best margin for a businesscard is 3 mm, stickers 1 a 2 mm, and 5 mm with books and loose images. While ordering your product, you can find the margins at the submission conditions.

Trim Margin

We need a small trim margin to get your file borderless printed: no white borders around your file. We can cut these white borders in 2 different ways

• The file is uploaded with cutting lines and a bleed. So we can follow your lines while cutting.

• we enlarge your file with 1%. This is not visible on your design, but it is just big enough for us to cut a small piece of your document (1 mm) so that it will not have any white borders.

By enlarging your file, the information on the document will be automatically placed a little closer to the edge. If this information is already very close to the edge in your file, the chance that we will cut of any information after enlarging will enhance. This is one of the reasons we ask for a correct margin.

The Machines and Paper

It is important to know that machines and paper can have a small deviation in the norm of the size. This deviation is very minimal and therefore to small to correct. Imagine:

You want to print a flyer. The chosen papertype has a deviation of 0,5 mm in size. With the 0,5 mm change, there will also be a small difference in our printers. This is, for example, once again a deviation of 0,5 mm. The cutting machine that is used for your flyers has small deviation of 0,5 mm also. With your bare eyes, a change of 0,5 mm is almost not even visible. But by adding those changes of 0,5 mm you get a deviation of 1,5 mm.

To cut your flyer as good as possible, we ask a margin of 5 mm to keep it as perfect as possible. A small change in the paper or machines, will then not be visible. Besides, it also looks better that images and text are not to close to the edge of your design. The margin that we ask is for the best product!

A Border

A border is a great example what, very often, falls outside of our margin. We do not recommend narrow borders because even a small deviation can make a big difference in the sizing of your frames. As discussed in the paragraph above, we cannot always correct minor deviations. And this will have a major impact on your frame.

Be sure to keep the minimum margin for frames. It is often better to keep the frames a bit wider than the minimum margin. We do not recommend to upload borders smaller than 5 mm.

Perfect Binding Books

For perfect binding books, we ask a larger margin on the inside of the books. This is because these books can not be placed flat on your tabel or any other surface. The pages will stay together in the middle. Therefore, we ask a margin of 15 mm on the inside of the books. This way, texts, images or other important information will not dissapear in the back of the book.