Bleeding Slugs in the Gutter (It's not as bad as it sounds)

First and foremost, let me put in a plug for our excellent InDesign/Desktop Publishing class. If you are in charge of fliers, posters, newsletters, or any other publication, you will want to sign up for this free class.

In Word, you have probably run into the problem of trying to get everything to fit on one page. You make the font a little smaller, then you make the margins a little smaller. With just one line of text left on the next page and a font size that shouldn't be any smaller, you resort to making the margins smaller and smaller until at last, it all fits on that one page. Perfect. Click print and...

"The margins of section ? are set outside the printable area of the page."Doh! This begs the question, how then do magazines and other publications print with ink to the edge of the paper?Do they just have fancier printers than I do? Well, the truth is, probably. But it's not just the printers. In desktop publishing, there are a few features of document design that enable this effect. If you have ever used InDesign, you've probably seen such terms as bleed, margin, slug, gutter, etc. All of these terms have to do with printing and document layout.

To see what I mean, open a new document in InDesign. I'll create it with the following settings:If you can't see all the options in the picture above, click More Options. Don't know what kind of measurement this is? See what Google has to say.

Once you click OK, you will see the first page of your document. And a lot of lines. At least it's colorful! Right? Well, all the lines mean something and I've put together this handy little picture as a reference for you. Below, I will discuss each line.Here is my breakdown of each one of the regions displayed above (the answer to the problem stated above is found in the bleed description):

Paper Size
This is the simplest one and easiest to understand. The black line is showing you the paper size. In our case, it is 8.5" x 11". Everything inside the black line will be visible on the final printed publication. Everything (or close to it) outside it is useful but will not be visible when all is said and done. Keep that in mind.

Margin
The margin is a region inside of the paper. It is the space between your text and the edge of the paper. Because paper gets ruffled or torn on the edges, or because you don't want the possibility of your printer messing up and printing text of the paper, we use a margin as kind of "safety zone." I personally think it helps readability if text isn't going right up to the edge.

Gutter
This is basically a margin for columns. That's it. It is the space in between two columns.

Bleed
The bleed is the red (how clever) region just outside the paper. If you were going to send your publication to a printer, they would specify how big your bleed should be. Imagine this: you are creating a publication that is 8.5" x 11". Well, like you, the publisher's printer can't print to edge of the paper. How do they do it? They print your 8.5" x 11" publication on bigger paper (the printer would tell you how big so you could set the bleed) and then they cut your paper. When they are done, it appears as if the ink bleeds right to the edge of the paper.You can see in this image that the left would be pre-printed, and the right would be end result. (picture courtesy of Printernational)

Slug
The slug is like a comments section for non-printing information that might be helpful if you are collaborating with a team of people. For example, the title of the document, any edits you may have made, the date of the most recent update, etc.

If you have any other questions or are interested in more basics of InDesign, sign up for an InDesign Foundations class today.