Free tool · nothing leaves your browser · Updated · Report a problem
Will anything get trimmed off?
This tool draws the trim line and safe area over your artwork in your browser — your file never leaves your computer. Drop it in, set the finished size, and anything too close to the edge is flagged before it becomes 500 cards with a clipped phone number.
1. Files
2. Job settings
3. Run
Automated · not a substitute for a person
If what comes out is not right, send it to us
These tools run on their own in your browser, and automatic is not the same as correct. A trace can miss a curve or turn a smooth arc into short straight segments. A cut contour can clip a tight corner. Bleed can be added to a file that was never built to carry it, and a check can pass artwork that still has something wrong with it only a person would notice. Treat what comes out as a starting point, not a proof.
If you are not happy with the result, send it to us and we will set the artwork up properly — free when you print the job with us. No setup fee, nothing to pay for the time. We would far rather spend twenty minutes on a file than have you print something you are not pleased with, and you still see a proof before anything runs. If you are printing it somewhere else, we will still set it up — that is artwork setup, at a fixed price from $29.
The rule, and why it exists
Keep anything you care about at least 3mm inside the trim line. Not touching it, not 1mm from it — 3mm.
A guillotine cuts through several hundred sheets at once. The blade is accurate to roughly a millimetre and the stack shifts slightly as it compresses, so across a run the trim wanders a fraction either way. A border 1mm from the edge will be 2mm thick on some cards and invisible on others, and it reads as a printing fault rather than a design decision.
Three measurements, one file
- Bleed — 3mm of background outside the trim, so a cut that lands wide still hits artwork rather than white paper.
- Trim — the finished size. Where the blade is aiming.
- Safe area — 3mm inside the trim. Text, logos, and anything else that must survive.
Missing bleed is usually fixable. Text in the danger zone usually is not. We can scale artwork slightly to invent bleed. We cannot move your phone number away from the edge without redesigning the piece, which is why this is the check worth running first.
The ones that catch people out
- Full-bleed borders. A thin frame around the edge is the most trim-sensitive thing you can design. Make it thick enough to absorb a millimetre of drift, or move it well inside.
- Folded work. A DL brochure needs safe area at every fold as well as every edge.
- Corflute and ACM. Router cutting is less precise than a guillotine — allow 5mm rather than 3mm.
- Pull-up banners. The bottom 100mm rolls into the cassette and is never seen. Nothing important goes there.
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