Best practice for resizing and adding bleed

[DJS]

Hello,

Could anyone suggest the best action list/smart preflight to take a file, resize it to a defined size (not variable and always portrait) and add 3mm bleed.

I can get it working to a degree, but, for some reason, bleed isn't being added to all edges, or bleed gets added but the file does not resize

Thank you

[loicaigon]

Hi,

There are default Global Changes and Action Lists in PiTStop that will do just that.

You can even create a new Action List, record execution and run the default resources.
Or simply import them.

Also a quick run can be thought about.

Screenshot 2026-03-06 at 10.44.30.png (78.19 KiB) Viewed 6722 times

When bleed isn't added on all edges, it's most of the times because the content next to the trim is slightly out of the detection range. By Default detection is 0.01mm, so if content is 0.011mm away from the trim, it won't be considered for bleed generation.
An easy fix is to increase the value to something like 0.1 for example.

What is the correct value? The bigger value you set, then the more chances are that you stretch objects which shouldn't.

[DJS]

Thank you so much, sadly I am still struggling to create an action that checks a pdf is A5, if it is and has bleed then leave as it, if it does not have bleed add 3mm bleed, and if not A5 then resize and make sure that has 3mm bleed... this should be possible?

[DJS]

Needs to be able to be included in a PPP, is a quickrun importable into a PPP?

[loicaigon]

Hi,

No you cannot just import a Quick run inside a Preflight Profile. However, it is only possible to add Extra Actions.

[DJS]

hello, can anyone help, I want to have a (if) type statement, ie if A5 with bleed, no further action, if A4 with no bleed them PPP is actioned

[loicaigon]

Hi,

While the statement makes sense, you can already achieve what you are looking for without a IF operator. The IF logic is fundamentally tied in PitStop to a selection. In other words, IF a selection is found, Actions will operate. Otherwise not.

So in your case, you want to select A4 pages with bleed. For A4 pages, it's quite easy. You can select pages by their page size:

Screenshot 2026-05-11 at 12.34.20.png (20.7 KiB) Viewed 1119 times

Now for bleed, it's a bit tricky because we have a "Check bleed" Action but it won't select actual pages. You can use instead "Select objects inside region and use the bleed box as reference.

Screenshot 2026-05-11 at 12.34.48.png (43.25 KiB) Viewed 1119 times

But there, you don't want bleed, so you can use NOT to negate those pages if they have bleed.
Seems complex but it is really not:

- Select objects inside region (Bleed box + inside of overlapping)
- Select page if content is selected (as we only want pages here)
- NOT (so that we have everything (including document, pages and objects) but not the previously selected pages
- Select pages by size => A4
- AND (so that we unite pages of A4 without any objects in the bleed area)
- Log (or do something with) selection

The downside is that it doesn't tell about pages "with" bleed. If there is an object biting by a fraction on the bleed box, the page will be disregarded. Which is what you want but maybe you will find the page to not have enough bleed still.

If you need a strict bleed check, you can still add rthe check for bleed afterwards.

Hope this helps,

Loic

[DJS]

Thank you Loïc