Free PDF Bleed Checker
Bleed is the area of your design that extends beyond the trim line. Without it, your printed piece can end up with thin white edges where the cut didn't land perfectly. Most commercial printers require 0.125" (3 mm) of bleed on every side.
Our bleed checker parses your PDF's TrimBox and BleedBox, compares them to your chosen finished size, and flags any side where bleed is missing or too small — all in seconds, right in your browser.
What the checker looks for
- ▸TrimBox vs BleedBox — are they set, and do they match your finished size?
- ▸Bleed distance on each side — top, bottom, left, right.
- ▸Page-by-page results, so mixed-size PDFs don't slip through.
- ▸Visual overlay showing trim (green), bleed (red), and crop mark positions.
When to use this
Run the bleed checker before uploading to any print service — especially KDP, Lulu, and IngramSpark, where a missing bleed means an instant rejection. It's also useful if you inherited a PDF from a designer and aren't sure whether bleed was included.