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Aloha all,

I'm working in InDesign CS5.5 on a master plan document.

I want the final document to be 11x8.5 landscape with facing pages, spiral bound to allow document to lay flat with full bleed. I have set up the document with legal size paper 14x8.5 so I can have full bleed and the printer personnel can cut to size.

My question is related to the spine edge. How do I set up my indesign file to have two facing pages that have the bleed lines at perimeter but allows a single graphics in the document to bleed across spine? I know, confusing, I'm struggling to articulate it. The basic point is that I want an image to bleed across the spine of document, but how do I do that in indesign without having to copy the image twice, i.e. place it once on left facing page, pull the extent over the bleed just enough, then copy the image to the right facing page, and try to manually match up where the image stops on the left and begins again on the right.

I have attached two pictures for reference.

Any questions to my confusing question?!

enter image description here

example

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You don't need to do anything other than ensure the bleeds are set in the Document Set Up and you include bleeds when exporting to PDF.

Just place the image (or whatever) across the gutter of the facing pages.

When you output facing pages to a standard single page press-ready PDF the bleed will be added to the gutter area. You simply don't see the bleed while working, and really, you don't need to.

Feel free to test this if you aren't trusting me. Just Export 2 facing pages as a PDF/X-1a file. You'll see the gutter bleed in the PDF.

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    awesome. I guess I was merely overthinking the whole thing huh? mahalo Aug 28, 2014 at 21:51
  • What if somewhere in the document, you have facing pages that are assigned different masters, and your master pages have bleeds? InDesign Setup, Acrobat Output. The color arrangement of the header bars leaves room for trim error.
    – apex
    Aug 29, 2014 at 19:51
  • You can set up a new facing page master for that combination of pages. You can apply one master page to another master page. Then the pages will look correct in the layout and altering Master A will change Master C.
    – Scott
    Aug 29, 2014 at 20:03
  • Thanks @Scott - I'm just fine getting it to look ok in the layout. But even when exporting with bleed and Master C applied to the 2-3 spread, the bleed is still messed up in the PDF output. Do you get different results?
    – apex
    Aug 29, 2014 at 21:11
  • Those bleeds look correct. Color changes at the gutter (trim) on the inside. So, the opposite color will start at the trim mark. This is how facing pages work. What you are "seeking" shows a single page layout, not facing pages.
    – Scott
    Aug 29, 2014 at 21:20

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