A 5 × 7 card with 0.125 inch bleed

Name the boundaries before calculating

Trim is the intended finished edge of a card. Bleed is artwork that extends beyond that edge so a small cutting variation does not expose a white sliver. A safe inset keeps text and logos away from the cut. Making the outer canvas larger does not move text into a safe position.

The tool uses equal bleed on all four edges and an equal safe inset inside the trim. It handles a common flat-card calculation. It does not model book interiors, binding, folding, packaging or printer-specific imposition.

Build the full 5 × 7 canvas

For a portrait 5 × 7 inch trim with 0.125 inch bleed on every edge, width is 5 + 0.125 + 0.125 = 5.25 inches. Height is 7 + 0.125 + 0.125 = 7.25 inches. At a 300 PPI target, the full raster canvas is 1575 × 2175 pixels.

The trim alone is 1500 × 2100 pixels at 300 PPI. Those pixels do not provide 300 PPI across the larger bleed canvas. One 0.125 inch edge is 37.5 pixels at this resolution. Keep the physical page dimensions in the editor and follow the printer’s export requirements instead of rounding each edge independently.

5 × 7 in trim + 0.125 in bleed on each edge = 5.25 × 7.25 in = 1575 × 2175 px at 300 PPI.

Check what survives the trim

Enter 1575 × 2175 pixels as the source, 0.125 inch bleed and a 300 PPI target. In portrait fill mode, the 5 × 7 result matches at 300 PPI with zero crop beyond the canvas. The bleed pixels are still removed during trimming.

Now try a file made for the trim alone: 1500 × 2100 pixels. Keep Portrait, Fill & crop, a 300 PPI target and centered alignment. With zero bleed, it fits 5 × 7 at 300 PPI. Change only Bleed to 0.125 inch. Covering the 5.25-inch canvas width lowers the effective resolution to 1500 ÷ 5.25 = 285.7 PPI. The target is still 300; the source is now below it.

At that scale the image is 5.25 × 7.35 inches, so 0.10 inch of its height lies outside the 7.25-inch bleed canvas. That is about 28.57 source pixels total, or 14.29 from each end when centered: 1.36% of the source height. These are continuous placement measurements, not an instruction to crop fractional pixels in an editor. The crop readout describes loss outside the canvas; trimming away the bleed removes more artwork afterward.

If the design was already composed to the finished edge, return to the editable layout and extend its background beyond the trim while keeping text inside the safe area. Enlarging the whole design can move important details toward the cut. Changing pixel dimensions or adding a white border does not by itself supply the intended bleed artwork. Inspect the exported file, not only the PPI result.

With a 0.125 inch safe inset, the inner rectangle is 4.75 × 6.75 inches. It is a geometric guide only. The tool does not inspect lettering, line weight, faces, logos or cutting tolerance.

If the printer asks for exactly 3 mm

A 5 × 7 inch trim is 127 × 177.8 mm. Adding 3 mm on each edge makes the canvas 133 × 183.8 mm. By comparison, 0.125 inch is exactly 3.175 mm, making the canvas 133.35 × 184.15 mm. The values are close, but they describe different document sizes. Use the value in your printer’s specification.

To compare them in the tool, keep the source at 1575 × 2175 pixels, Portrait, Fill and a 300 PPI resolution target. Select Millimeters, then enter 3 in Bleed and 3 in Safe inset. Read the 5 × 7 card result. Changing units preserves the physical measurement: a 0.125 inch bleed becomes 3.175 mm until you replace it with 3.

• The required-pixel values round each full canvas dimension up once: for example, 133 ÷ 25.4 × 300 = 1570.866… becomes 1571 pixels. Do not round the trim and each bleed edge separately.
• The safe area stays the same because it is measured inward from the trim. Changing bleed alone does not protect text that is too close to the cut.
• The 300 PPI value is the target used to calculate required pixels. The effective PPI of your existing image can differ when its placement changes. Whole-pixel rounding can also leave a small ratio difference; keep the specified physical page and bleed dimensions in the production document.

Follow the print provider’s specification

• Use the print provider’s required bleed. A common 0.125 inch or 3 mm value is neither identical nor universal.
• For a requirement in millimeters, select Millimeters and enter it directly. If the finished trim is not one of the four standard sizes, choose Add custom size and enter the trim width and height before bleed.
• Use fill for artwork that must cover the bleed canvas. Fit can leave borders and cannot create missing background. Inspect the exported file and proof before approval.