Why Your Pages Keep Printing With White Borders

When exporting your book files, the difference between bleed and no bleed is all about how your pages meet the edge.

When to export with Bleed:

Anytime you have images or backgrounds that extend past the trim line (usually 0.5–1cm), you’ll want to export with bleed marks! 

This ensures color, photos, or design elements print seamlessly to the edge with no white border. It’s perfect for full-page spreads, design-heavy books, or journals. Just stretch your images about 1cm beyond the edges of the page and export with bleed for a seamless background image!

When to export with No Bleed: 

When your content stays neatly inside the margins, you won’t need to export with a bleed. When NO elements touch the edge and everything is contained, you won’t need bleed marks and you can deselect it from your book listing. This is best for clean, text-focused manuscripts where images don’t stretch over the borders/printing areas.

Think of it like tailoring: bleed is custom edges that drape right to the hem, no bleed is a sharp cut that stays within the seams. 

Both have their place, but knowing when to use each one is the difference between a polished, professional book and a file that looks “off” in print.

And if you’d rather not stress about the details, we handle it all for you! Formatting, design, publishing, and even a bestseller guarantee. Get Done-For-You Publishing at its finest with Prose Publishing.