This tool adds what a professional print shop expects to a PDF document: bleed of the chosen width, crop marks at every page corner, and optionally registration marks and a color bar. The TrimBox and BleedBox of the file are set automatically, alongside the enlarged MediaBox. The whole computation happens in your browser, with no document transmitted to an online service.
Bleed is an extra strip beyond the final trim size, meant to be cut away by the print shop. It prevents a thin white line from appearing if the cut drifts by a few tenths of a millimeter — essential as soon as any artwork touches the edge of the page.
Mirror mode extends each edge of the page by reflecting a thin strip taken from that same edge, to give the illusion of continuing content — a practical approach, not genuine extra photographic content. Flat colour mode simply fills the bleed area with a chosen colour, which is more honest when the page has no edge-to-edge content to extend.
Crop marks show the print shop where to cut for the final trim size, placed at the four corners of the page, outside the printed area. The optional registration marks are used to check the alignment of colour separations on a professional printing press.
Yes, in addition to enlarging the MediaBox to hold the bleed and the marks, the tool precisely sets the TrimBox — the final size after cutting — and the BleedBox — the area including the bleed — as a professional prepress workflow expects.
The settings offered — bleed, crop and registration marks, an indicative colour bar — cover the most common requirements, but every print shop may have its own specifications (bleed width, colour profile). Always check their specification sheet before the final submission.
Vellum — free PDF tools whose processing stays on your device.