{"course":{"slug":"vector-and-print","title":"Vectors, Logos and Things That Get Printed","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print","level":"beginner","track":"create"},"lesson":{"slug":"the-five-pdf-boxes","title":"The five rectangles inside a PDF","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/the-five-pdf-boxes","position":58,"of":73,"minutes":8,"answer":"The press cuts from the TrimBox, so set the document page size to trim and bleed in the document setup rather than exporting a page at trim-plus-bleed, and verify with pdfinfo -box.","keyIdea":"The press cuts from the TrimBox, so set the document page size to trim and bleed in the document setup rather than exporting a page at trim-plus-bleed, and verify with `pdfinfo -box`, which is arithmetic anybody can check in ten seconds."},"body":{"format":"markdown","text":"## Your page has five sizes, not one\n\nA PDF page carries up to five rectangles, and most disagreements with a printer are one of them being missing or wrong.\n\n- **MediaBox**: the sheet the page is described on. Always present. Everything else is defined inside it.\n- **CropBox**: what a viewer displays. Defaults to the MediaBox.\n- **BleedBox**: the area including bleed, where artwork may extend.\n- **TrimBox**: **the finished size after cutting.** This is the one that matters.\n- **ArtBox**: the meaningful content area. Rarely used in commercial print.\n\nThe press positions and cuts from the **TrimBox**. A file with no TrimBox forces the operator to guess, and \"no trim box defined\" is one of the most common preflight rejections there is.\n\n## A worked example\n\nA 90 × 54 mm visiting card with 3 mm bleed and crop marks:\n\n- **TrimBox**: 90 × 54 mm. The card.\n- **BleedBox**: 96 × 60 mm. Trim plus 3 mm on each side.\n- **MediaBox**: larger again, typically 106 × 70 mm or so, to make room for crop marks and any colour bars outside the bleed.\n\nA very common error is exporting the page at 96 × 60 mm with no boxes defined. The printer then sees a 96 × 60 mm page and either cuts to it (producing an oversized card with no bleed) or asks you to re-export.\n\n> Figure: A 90 by 54 mm card, in boxes. Layers, top to bottom: MediaBox, about 106 by 70 mm (The sheet the page is described on, with room for crop marks); BleedBox, 96 by 60 mm (Trim plus 3 mm on every side. Artwork may run out to here); TrimBox, 90 by 54 mm (The card. The press positions and cuts from this one). Set the document page size to trim and the bleed in the document setup, and these fall out correctly. Export a page at 96 by 60 mm with no boxes defined and the press either cuts to that size or sends the job back.\n\n## Reading them\n\n```bash\npdfinfo -box job.pdf\n```\n\nOutput looks like:\n\n```\nPage size:      300.47 x 198.43 pts\nMediaBox:       0.00  0.00  300.47 198.43\nCropBox:        0.00  0.00  300.47 198.43\nBleedBox:       8.50  8.50  291.97 189.93\nTrimBox:       17.01 17.01  283.46 181.42\nArtBox:        17.01 17.01  283.46 181.42\n```\n\nCheck the arithmetic. TrimBox width here is 283.46 − 17.01 = 266.45 pt = **93.99 mm**. BleedBox width is 291.97 − 8.50 = 283.47 pt = **100 mm**. So trim is 94 mm and bleed extends 3 mm each side. If those numbers are not the sizes you agreed, stop before sending.\n\n`mutool info` and Acrobat's Document Properties give you the same information.\n\nAcrobat also draws the boxes on screen: Preferences ▸ Page Display ▸ *Show art, trim & bleed boxes*. Turn it on once and every PDF you open shows you its geometry without a command line.\n\n## Setting them correctly\n\nThe boxes come from how you set up the document and the export, not from a separate dialog.\n\n- Set the **document page size to trim**, not to trim-plus-bleed. This is the single mistake that generates most of the box problems.\n- Set **bleed in the document setup** (3 mm all round), not by drawing a larger rectangle.\n- On export, tick **use document bleed settings** and turn on crop marks with an **offset** of at least the bleed amount, so the marks sit outside the bleed rather than printing into it.\n\nScribus, InDesign, Affinity and CorelDRAW all follow this pattern. In Inkscape, which has no native bleed concept, set the SVG page to the trim size and use the PDF export's bleed/margin field, or, better, do the final assembly in Scribus.\n\n## Fixing a file you cannot re-export\n\nOccasionally you receive a PDF with wrong boxes and no source. Ghostscript can rewrite them:\n\n```bash\ngs -o fixed.pdf -sDEVICE=pdfwrite \\\n   -dUseTrimBox=true -dFIXEDMEDIA \\\n   -c \"[/CropBox [17 17 283 181] /PAGES pdfmark\" -f job.pdf\n```\n\n`pdftk`, `qpdf` and `mutool` can also manipulate page geometry. Treat all of it as a rescue, not a workflow: the right answer is to fix the source document and export again.\n\n## Crop marks, registration marks and colour bars\n\n- **Crop marks** show where to cut. Offset them beyond the bleed.\n- **Registration marks** are printed in all plates and let the press check alignment. The press adds these; you normally do not.\n- **Colour bars** are strips of known patches the press measures during the run. Also theirs, not yours.\n- **Page information** (filename, date, plate name) is optional and useful on a multi-page job.\n\nDo not draw any of these by hand. Every application generates them, aligned to the boxes, and a hand-drawn crop mark in the wrong place is worse than none."},"check":{"question":"A designer sets up a visiting card document at 96 × 60 mm so the 3 mm bleed is \"already included\", draws the card's trim area as a guide, and exports without crop marks. What will the printer see?","options":[{"text":"A 96 × 60 mm TrimBox and no BleedBox, so the card is cut at 96 × 60 mm with no bleed.","correct":true},{"text":"A 90 × 54 mm TrimBox derived from the drawn guides, with a correct 3 mm BleedBox surrounding it.","correct":false,"tempting":"Guides are not exported and carry no meaning in a PDF; nothing in the file records the intended trim."},{"text":"No boxes at all, because a PDF only carries box definitions when crop marks are enabled on export.","correct":false,"tempting":"A MediaBox is always present and the TrimBox is written from the document page size; crop marks are drawn marks, not the source of the boxes."},{"text":"A correct BleedBox but no TrimBox, so the press will default to cutting 3 mm inside the page edge.","correct":false,"tempting":"Nothing in the file distinguishes bleed from trim here, and no press defaults to cutting an assumed amount inside an undefined edge."}]},"prev":{"slug":"pdf-x-flavours","title":"PDF/X, and what each flavour forbids","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/pdf-x-flavours"},"next":{"slug":"preflight-your-own-pdf","title":"Preflighting your own PDF, free","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/preflight-your-own-pdf"},"authorship":"Founder and series editor: Dr Mustafa Mun. Written by AI models to a written standard. Exam keys checked blind by a second model: 3,665 of 3,666 agreed. Academic review invited.","review":{"status":"Draft, open for academic review"},"cite":"Addaly (2026) 'The five rectangles inside a PDF', in Vectors, Logos and Things That Get Printed. Edited by M. Mun. Addaly. Available at: https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/the-five-pdf-boxes (Accessed: 13 October 2026).","licence":{"name":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"},"reader":{"schema":1,"title":"The five rectangles inside a PDF","courseTitle":"Vectors, Logos and Things That Get Printed","module":{"index":7,"slug":"the-handover","title":"The handover"},"answer":null,"keyIdea":"The press cuts from the TrimBox, so set the document page size to trim and bleed in the document setup rather than exporting a page at trim-plus-bleed, and verify with `pdfinfo -box`, which is arithmetic anybody can check in ten seconds.","hero":{"kind":"figure","figure":{"t":"figure","label":"Figure","figure":{"type":"stack","title":"A 90 by 54 mm card, in boxes","layers":[{"label":"MediaBox, about 106 by 70 mm","detail":"The sheet the page is described on, with room for crop marks"},{"label":"BleedBox, 96 by 60 mm","detail":"Trim plus 3 mm on every side. Artwork may run out to here"},{"label":"TrimBox, 90 by 54 mm","detail":"The card. The press positions and cuts from this one"}],"caption":"Set the document page size to trim and the bleed in the document setup, and these fall out correctly. Export a page at 96 by 60 mm with no boxes defined and the press either cuts to that size or sends the job back."},"alt":"Figure: A 90 by 54 mm card, in boxes. Layers, top to bottom: MediaBox, about 106 by 70 mm (The sheet the page is described on, with room for crop marks); BleedBox, 96 by 60 mm (Trim plus 3 mm on every side. Artwork may run out to here); TrimBox, 90 by 54 mm (The card. The press positions and cuts from this one). Set the document page size to trim and the bleed in the document setup, and these fall out correctly. Export a page at 96 by 60 mm with no boxes defined and the press either cuts to that size or sends the job back."}},"blocks":[{"t":"h2","id":"your-page-has-five-sizes-not-one","runs":[{"text":"Your page has five sizes, not one"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"A PDF page carries up to five rectangles, and most disagreements with a printer are one of them being missing or wrong."}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"MediaBox","b":true},{"text":": the sheet the page is described on. Always present. Everything else is defined inside it."}],[{"text":"CropBox","b":true},{"text":": what a viewer displays. Defaults to the MediaBox."}],[{"text":"BleedBox","b":true},{"text":": the area including bleed, where artwork may extend."}],[{"text":"TrimBox","b":true},{"text":": "},{"text":"the finished size after cutting.","b":true},{"text":" This is the one that matters."}],[{"text":"ArtBox","b":true},{"text":": the meaningful content area. Rarely used in commercial print."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"The press positions and cuts from the "},{"text":"TrimBox","b":true},{"text":". A file with no TrimBox forces the operator to guess, and “no trim box defined” is one of the most common preflight rejections there is."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"a-worked-example","runs":[{"text":"A worked example"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"A 90 × 54 mm visiting card with 3 mm bleed and crop marks:"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"TrimBox","b":true},{"text":": 90 × 54 mm. The card."}],[{"text":"BleedBox","b":true},{"text":": 96 × 60 mm. Trim plus 3 mm on each side."}],[{"text":"MediaBox","b":true},{"text":": larger again, typically 106 × 70 mm or so, to make room for crop marks and any colour bars outside the bleed."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"A very common error is exporting the page at 96 × 60 mm with no boxes defined. The printer then sees a 96 × 60 mm page and either cuts to it (producing an oversized card with no bleed) or asks you to re-export."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"reading-them","runs":[{"text":"Reading them"}]},{"t":"code","lang":"bash","label":"Bash","text":"pdfinfo -box job.pdf"},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Output looks like:"}]},{"t":"code","lang":"","label":"Text","text":"Page size:      300.47 x 198.43 pts\nMediaBox:       0.00  0.00  300.47 198.43\nCropBox:        0.00  0.00  300.47 198.43\nBleedBox:       8.50  8.50  291.97 189.93\nTrimBox:       17.01 17.01  283.46 181.42\nArtBox:        17.01 17.01  283.46 181.42"},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Check the arithmetic. TrimBox width here is 283.46 − 17.01 = 266.45 pt = "},{"text":"93.99 mm","b":true},{"text":". BleedBox width is 291.97 − 8.50 = 283.47 pt = "},{"text":"100 mm","b":true},{"text":". So trim is 94 mm and bleed extends 3 mm each side. If those numbers are not the sizes you agreed, stop before sending."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"mutool info","code":true},{"text":" and Acrobat’s Document Properties give you the same information."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Acrobat also draws the boxes on screen: Preferences ▸ Page Display ▸ "},{"text":"Show art, trim & bleed boxes","i":true},{"text":". Turn it on once and every PDF you open shows you its geometry without a command line."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"setting-them-correctly","runs":[{"text":"Setting them correctly"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"The boxes come from how you set up the document and the export, not from a separate dialog."}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Set the "},{"text":"document page size to trim","b":true},{"text":", not to trim-plus-bleed. This is the single mistake that generates most of the box problems."}],[{"text":"Set "},{"text":"bleed in the document setup","b":true},{"text":" (3 mm all round), not by drawing a larger rectangle."}],[{"text":"On export, tick "},{"text":"use document bleed settings","b":true},{"text":" and turn on crop marks with an "},{"text":"offset","b":true},{"text":" of at least the bleed amount, so the marks sit outside the bleed rather than printing into it."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Scribus, InDesign, Affinity and CorelDRAW all follow this pattern. In Inkscape, which has no native bleed concept, set the SVG page to the trim size and use the PDF export’s bleed/margin field, or, better, do the final assembly in Scribus."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"fixing-a-file-you-cannot-re-export","runs":[{"text":"Fixing a file you cannot re-export"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Occasionally you receive a PDF with wrong boxes and no source. Ghostscript can rewrite them:"}]},{"t":"code","lang":"bash","label":"Bash","text":"gs -o fixed.pdf -sDEVICE=pdfwrite \\\n   -dUseTrimBox=true -dFIXEDMEDIA \\\n   -c \"[/CropBox [17 17 283 181] /PAGES pdfmark\" -f job.pdf"},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"pdftk","code":true},{"text":", "},{"text":"qpdf","code":true},{"text":" and "},{"text":"mutool","code":true},{"text":" can also manipulate page geometry. Treat all of it as a rescue, not a workflow: the right answer is to fix the source document and export again."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"crop-marks-registration-marks-and-colour-bars","runs":[{"text":"Crop marks, registration marks and colour bars"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Crop marks","b":true},{"text":" show where to cut. Offset them beyond the bleed."}],[{"text":"Registration marks","b":true},{"text":" are printed in all plates and let the press check alignment. The press adds these; you normally do not."}],[{"text":"Colour bars","b":true},{"text":" are strips of known patches the press measures during the run. Also theirs, not yours."}],[{"text":"Page information","b":true},{"text":" (filename, date, plate name) is optional and useful on a multi-page job."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Do not draw any of these by hand. Every application generates them, aligned to the boxes, and a hand-drawn crop mark in the wrong place is worse than none."}]}],"check":{"question":[{"text":"A designer sets up a visiting card document at 96 × 60 mm so the 3 mm bleed is “already included”, draws the card’s trim area as a guide, and exports without crop marks. What will the printer see?"}],"options":[{"text":[{"text":"A 96 × 60 mm TrimBox and no BleedBox, so the card is cut at 96 × 60 mm with no bleed."}],"correct":true,"tempting":null},{"text":[{"text":"A 90 × 54 mm TrimBox derived from the drawn guides, with a correct 3 mm BleedBox surrounding it."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Guides are not exported and carry no meaning in a PDF; nothing in the file records the intended trim."}]},{"text":[{"text":"No boxes at all, because a PDF only carries box definitions when crop marks are enabled on export."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"A MediaBox is always present and the TrimBox is written from the document page size; crop marks are drawn marks, not the source of the boxes."}]},{"text":[{"text":"A correct BleedBox but no TrimBox, so the press will default to cutting 3 mm inside the page edge."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Nothing in the file distinguishes bleed from trim here, and no press defaults to cutting an assumed amount inside an undefined edge."}]}],"order":[2,0,3,1],"why":null},"prev":{"slug":"pdf-x-flavours","title":"PDF/X, and what each flavour forbids","minutes":8},"next":{"slug":"preflight-your-own-pdf","title":"Preflighting your own PDF, free","minutes":9}}}