If your preferred album manufacturer does not appear under Settings in the Printing Services area, you can create a custom page size. Under the Settings tab, you may set up custom page dimensions to ensure your project will be designed and rendered to the correct specifications.
What you need to know
Many album manufacturers will list general product sizes on their website. However, there may be extra details you'll need to get the products correct.
- The height and width of a trimmed spread (double-page spread). This is the exact finished dimensions of your page.
- The safe insets for the top, bottom, gutter and edge of the spread. The safe inset is a recommended margin, inside which all content on your page is assured to not be cut off after the book is trimmed.
- The bleed inflate for the top, bottom, gutter and edge of the spread. The bleed inflate adds extra padding to your page, ensuring that content that extends to the outer edge of your trimmed sheet goes right to the edge of the page, leaving no unprinted paper.
- If the product includes a cover, the width(s) of the spine is needed. Note the spine value is included in the height and width of the trimmed page, and that spines will grow with added number of pages.
For your page settings, there are three important areas which need to match your printing company's recommendations: the page size, the safe zone and the bleed zone.
The page size represents the physical dimensions of your finished (trimmed page), calculated as a double spread. For the width, double the size of a single finished trimmed page. For example, an 8x10 book would be entered as 16x10. The gutter line is automatically added to the middle of the spread. |  |
| The safe zone adds a margin line determined by your printer. It is measured from the trim edge inward. This is a guideline set up to recommend the edge where you should not place any "meaningful" content, as it is close to the trim line. Safe lines may not be even around all four sides of your page. For instance the gutter safe line may be further inset to ensure that photos or text are not pushed into the book binding. |  |
| The bleed zone inflates the dimensions of your page. This area is used to print an extension of the background image or color beyond the trim edge of your page. After printing, this area is trimmed off. Only add this if your printing company explicitly tells you to include it in your page settings. |  |
You may also add margins at your discretion in the design section to achieve a specific design look but these are not critical to achieve a properly printed page.
On the Settings and Editor tab, your page will appear as a white canvas surrounded by a grey bleed inflate area (for bleeds over 0") and a green safe line. The gutter and design margin are indicated in grey.
Below is an illustration to more clearly delineate the areas from each other. Note that anything in the grey and tan areas will be present in your final printed product. Anything in the pink area will be trimmed off.
Cover settings are similar, with the addition of a spine width. You can design within the spine area (eg. to add a book title).
Note that as additional pages are added to albums, the spine width increases. The spine width is added to your trim width automatically.
Render size
Under the Finalize tab, you can render your canvas only to the trim edges by using Render Canvas only. This excludes the bleed zone.
In this case, your project dimensions will be as follows -
- Page: [page width] x [page height]
- Cover: [page width + spine width] x [page height]
If you want to include the bleed zone, choose either Render Canvas + Bleed or Render Canvas + Bleed + Crop marks.
Choosing these values will produce a finished page size as follows -
- Page: [page width + bleed edge + bleed gutter] x [page height + bleed top + bleed bottom]
- Cover: [page width + bleed edge + bleed gutter+ spine width] x [page height + bleed edge + bleed gutter]