What?

Bleed can be added to irregular shapes. The bleed can be mirror, stretch or document bleed and becomes available if a cut contour line is used. It is designed to be used in unison with True-Shape nesting.

How?

The True-Shape bleed interface is available in both Editor and Layout and becomes available when a cut layer is active either by mapping a spot color to a cut tool, or already in the file.

Editor:

There are some pre-requisites before True-Shape bleed is available:

• A cutter needs to be activated in Editor
• A cut layer must be present
• The artwork should have a cut line

The image below shows these pre-requisites:

After the pre-requisites are met you then need to double click the cut layer in the Layers tab, this will then open up the True-Shape bleed interface:

In this interface you have 4 options:

• Method: This determines the type of bleed; mirror, stretch or document.
• Width: This determines the amount of bleed, extending outwards from the contour line.
• Inset: defines the position from where the bleed starts in relation to the cut line.
• Preview: This opens a preview window to preview the bleed prior to applying it

Here you can see the bleed preview window showing 6mm of stretch bleed applied with 0mm inset:

After you click ‘Save’ the bleed will be added to the image, the bleed is depicted by the lighter color around the edges of the original image:

Now, when the file is nested by True Shape nesting the additional bleed will be taken into account when creating the nest. You can check the ripped output to see the bleed effect has been applied:

Layout:

The pre-requisites are the same for Layout, you should:

• Have a cutter activated
• A cut contour line is present (usually created when mapping a spot color to cut tool)

The image below shows these pre-requisites: a cutter is on & tool mapping has been applied:

Now, click on the settings sprocket (gear icon) next to the tool type (Thru-Cut in the above image). This will bring up the True Shape Bleed window:

After you click save, the bleed is added to the image depicted by the lighter color around the edge of the image.

Also notice, that in the Image Marks window ‘True-Shape’ has been selected in the bleed menu:

When True-Shape is selected in the image marks bleed menu this means other bleeds are unavailable. If you need to use other bleeds again, you first need to disable True-Shape bleed by opening the interface and setting it to none: