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We like to think the second part was a very clever hint. If we were the type to overdo the puns, we would make a comparison to those "Nightmare" movies, since we are discussing bleeding and sharp edges. However, we are not that sort, so let us move on to the Marie Antoinette portion of the program. The password is guillotine blades! Fortunately, unlike the French version, it is possible to recover from this error. Simply pull your content back into the body of the page, away from the final trim!

In the last article we talked about bleed, which is anything that is used in the background as an effect and goes to the paper's edges.

Critical content can be defined as the complete opposite. It is considered anything that isn't in the background. Examples of this would be body text, headlines, logo's, pictures and captions. Anything at all that is not part of the background.

I mentioned earlier that guillotines and book cutters don't give a very exact positioning of every sheet they are cutting. This is the result of the physical reaction of the paper to the pressure that is applied when making the cut. If the sheet ends up somewhat bigger than it's supposed to, this will be compensated by the bleed.

However if your 'critical content' is too close to the final trim and the blade cuts closer than normal, it could cut into your text, logos, and other 'critical content'.

The aesthetic look of the product will appear as if it has been trimmed too closely if it is not cut off but is quite close (within 1 to 2 mm).

The solution is to place critical content at least 5mm from the final trim. Place graphics and text by using margins as guidelines. This is important for any printed product including magazines, business cards, brochures, and stationary.

When making a thick book you are going to want to make sure that the distance from the spine to the pages is larger. Instead of 5mm you are probably going to need something closer to 20mm. It is also important to ensure that you have the 'facing pages' setting on. This will ensure that odd numbered pages have the spine on the left while even number pages have it on the right.

The top, bottom, and right (opposite the spine) should have a white space of no less than 5-10mm between the text and the edge of the paper in order to have a consistent look.