Monthly Archives: September 2026

Layouts With or Without Bleed

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In this blog post, we’ll explain the term “bleed” and show you how to correctly create and export a layout with bleed.

What Is Bleed?

The reason for using bleed is that it’s technically not possible to print exactly to the edge of a sheet of paper. That’s why, in professional printing, maps are printed in a slightly larger format than the final map size and then cut (trimmed) to the final size. If the map or layout is supposed to extend all the way to the edge of the paper, it must be extended beyond the trim mark to create a bleed area. The bleed area is then the part that gets cut off. This ensures a professional look as there will be no white borders after cutting.

Two Types of Layouts

Layout without bleed

The easiest way is to create a layout that does not extend all the way to the edge of the map.

When exporting, make sure that no relevant map or course setting objects are too close to the edge of the print extent, so that they are guaranteed to be fully visible on the printed map.

To ensure this, define a margin of 5mm in the Define Paper Size function (red dashed line in the image above).

This type of layout also works well for home printers.

Layout with bleed

If the layout should last all the way to the edge, all layout elements should be 3 – 5 mm larger on all four sides than the final map format. 

You’ll find instructions here on how to correctly export a PDF for printing companies.

If no bleed area is defined and, for example, a standard A4 sheet is exported, the printer will, if possible, trim the map so that no white borders are visible. The final map format will be slightly smaller than the standard A4 sheet, but this ultimately doesn’t matter.

When printing this type of layout on a home printer, a white border appears around the layout elements, which does not look very good. But also this ultimately doesn’t matter.

Conclusion

A layout can be designed in various ways and exported along with the map.

The important point is to ensure that no relevant layout, map or course setting objects are positioned too close to the edge of the print extent. This guarantees that they will be fully visible on the printed map.

See the OCAD Wiki for more information.

Create and Load Extents

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An extent is an area in OCAD that you define and save, which you can use for various purposes, such as printing, exporting, or creating a layout.

The latest OCAD Update brought improvements to reuse extents.

How to create an extent?

Use the Define Paper Size function to create and save a new extent. This can be a standard paper format like A4 or any custom format.

The extent will be shown in the drawing area and the area outside will be grayed out. This is helpful, for example, when you’re creating a layout for a map.

How to use an extent for exporting and printing

If you have saved an extent, it is also available both in the export dialog (Menu File > Export > Load extent) and in the print dialog (Menu File > Print > Part of map > Set Up…). In the latter dialog it is also possible to save and delete extents.

Improvements since the latest OCAD Update

Since the latest OCAD Update, also extents from background maps can be loaded in the Define Paper Size and Canvas function.

This can be useful, for example, for course setting projects when you use the Canvas function and load already defined extents from your layouts files.