What size bleed does a US Tabloid poster need?
A standard US Tabloid poster is printed with an 11 × 17 in trim size and needs a 0.125 in bleed on every edge, which makes the artwork board 11.25 × 17.25 in and keeps important text and logos inside a 10.75 × 16.75 in safe area.
The numbers
- Trim
- 11 × 17 in
- Bleed box
- 11.25 × 17.25 in
- Safe area
- 10.75 × 16.75 in
- Page
- 11.5 × 17.5 in
- The bleed box adds the 0.125 in bleed to every edge of the trim, so 11 + 0.125 + 0.125 = 11.25 in wide and 17 + 0.125 + 0.125 = 17.25 in tall, giving a 11.25 × 17.25 in bleed box.
- The safe area pulls the same 0.125 in in from every edge of the trim, so 11 − 0.125 − 0.125 = 10.75 in wide and 17 − 0.125 − 0.125 = 16.75 in tall, giving a 10.75 × 16.75 in safe area.
- The page adds room for crop marks on top of the bleed, so 11 + 0.25 + 0.25 = 11.5 in wide and 17 + 0.25 + 0.25 = 17.5 in tall, giving a 11.5 × 17.5 in page.
- Bleed is only added once per edge, so the 0.125 in bleed setting adds 0.25 in to the total width and 0.25 in to the total height, not 0.125 in.
The most common mistake is building the artwork at exactly 11 × 17 in with no bleed at all, so any background colour or image stops right at the trim line and a sliver of white paper shows up along one or two edges after the poster is cut.
US sizes are specified in inches, so the bleed is quoted as 0.125 in rather than the 3 mm used on ISO sizes - the two conventions are close but not identical.
Keep the safe area margin in mind for anything you do not want trimmed off, since cutting during production can shift by a fraction of an inch in either direction.
Guides are placed in a PDF optional-content layer flagged not to print, so they stay visible on screen but are omitted when the file is printed.
- Bleed11.25 × 17.25 in
- Trim11 × 17 in
- Safe area10.75 × 16.75 in
| Box | in | pt |
|---|---|---|
| Bleed box (make artwork this big) | 11.25 × 17.25 in | 810 × 1242 pt |
| Trim (final cut size) | 11 × 17 in | 792 × 1224 pt |
| Safe area (keep text inside) | 10.75 × 16.75 in | 774 × 1206 pt |
| PDF page (MediaBox) | 11.5 × 17.5 in | 828 × 1260 pt |
- Trim
11 × 17 in- Bleed box
11 + 2 × 0.125 = 11.25 in wide, 17 + 2 × 0.125 = 17.25 in tallBleed is added here, and only here. Setting your document page size to the bleed box (11.25 × 17.25 in) and then adding bleed again in your design software double-counts it, leaving a white gap at the crop marks.
- Safe area
11 - 2 × 0.125 = 10.75 in wide, 17 - 2 × 0.125 = 16.75 in tall- Marks
0.125 in long, offset 0.125 in from the trim edge- Page
11 + 2 × 0.25 = 11.5 in wide, 17 + 2 × 0.25 = 17.5 in tallThe page (11.5 × 17.5 in) is larger than the bleed box (11.25 × 17.25 in) so it has room for the crop and registration marks; the artwork itself does not need to fill the page.
PDF metadata
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The generated PDF is a correctly sized blank canvas: a page with MediaBox, TrimBox, and BleedBox set to the dimensions you specify, plus crop marks showing where to cut. It does not contain any artwork.
Colour in the PDF is plain RGB or grayscale and is not colour-managed.
Confirm the bleed value with your printer before sending final artwork.