Set Affinity’s document units to millimeters, enter your bleed values, then choose View > Show > Bleed. This displays bleed guides, but artboard content remains clipped at its boundary. Use the Export dialog to inspect output with bleed included.
This guide follows the current Affinity desktop Help Center and its Mac menu paths. The task is to keep print dimensions in millimeters while checking both the bleed boundary and the artwork intended to fill it. Those are separate checks: Affinity documents bleed guides, artboard clipping, and export inclusion as distinct behaviors. Setting bleed, About artboards
What can you preview around an artboard?
A bleed guide marks how far artwork should extend beyond the finished page edge. Turning it on gives you a positioning reference; it does not automatically extend a background or reveal every part of an object outside an artboard. Affinity’s artboard documentation explicitly says objects extending beyond an artboard’s boundary are clipped to its design area. Setting bleed, About artboards
There is also a documented limit on Clip to Canvas: the command is unavailable in documents containing artboards. You cannot follow a single-page tutorial that disables this option and expect the same control to become available for artboards. Clip to Canvas
Choose your next step according to what you need to inspect:
| Your immediate task | Supported path | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Locate the bleed boundary while editing | Set bleed and enable View > Show > Bleed | Where the configured bleed ends |
| Inspect the intended exported appearance | Open File > Export > Export, choose the format and area, then enable Include bleed | How the current export settings affect output |
| View off-page artwork continuously while editing | Use a document without artboards and disable View > Clip to Canvas | The artwork extending onto the pasteboard |
These paths follow Affinity’s documentation for bleed, the Export dialog, and canvas clipping.
How to set millimeters and show bleed guides
Set the document’s measurement units
For an existing document, choose Document > Setup > Document Setup, then set Document Units to millimeters. Affinity also provides two alternatives: select the Zoom Tool and use its context-toolbar Units menu, or Control-click the ruler intersection when rulers are visible and choose the unit there. The document-unit setting is saved with the document. Document units
For a new document, choose File > New and set Document units to millimeters in the New Document dialog. A-series presets already use millimeters by default, but check the setting when starting from another preset. You can retain millimeters for rulers, object dimensions, guides, and positioning throughout the design process. Document units
Enter the bleed distances
- Choose Document > Setup > Document Setup.
- Open the Bleed tab.
- For equal bleed on every edge, enable the Link symbol and enter the required value in one field.
- For unequal bleed, disable the Link symbol and enter the Left, Right, Top, and Bottom values separately.
- Confirm the dialog.
Affinity documents these controls in Setting bleed.
Use the bleed amount specified for your intended output. For the worked example below, 3 mm is an illustrative input, not a universal requirement. Keep the artboard at its intended finished size; Affinity describes bleed as the additional area beyond the trim edge defined by the document dimensions. Setting bleed
Display the outline and check the viewing mode
Choose View > Show > Bleed. Affinity displays an outline extending beyond the page edge by the configured distances. If the outline blends into your artwork, return to Document Setup > Bleed, click the Color swatch, choose a more visible color, and confirm. Setting bleed
If design aids disappear, check View > Preview Mode and turn it off while inspecting bleed. Preview Mode hides bleed guides along with other design aids and clips off-page or partially overlapping objects to the canvas. Its purpose is to preview the finished appearance, so it is unsuitable for checking the outer bleed guide. Preview mode
How to inspect the bleed artwork before exporting
When you need to see what the output will contain, open the full Export dialog. Affinity documents a preview that responds to export settings and supports zooming and panning. This provides an output inspection step while you retain millimeters in the working document. It does not change the artboard’s editing-view clipping behavior. About exporting, About artboards
- Choose File > Export > Export.
- Select a preset for the intended file format. For a professional-print PDF, Affinity’s bleed instructions use a PDF/X preset.
- Set Area deliberately: choose the named artboard for one design, or Whole document for all artboards.
- Enable Include bleed.
- Inspect the preview, concentrating on each edge and corner.
- When ready, click Export, name the file, choose its destination, and save.
These steps combine the official Export dialog, Export Settings, and Setting bleed instructions.
On Mac, hold Option while scrolling with a mouse wheel or trackpad to zoom the export preview. Press Command–0 to fit it in the preview area. Enlarging the dialog can also make the edge inspection easier. Export dialog, About exporting
Check Area before diagnosing missing artwork. Selection Area includes overlapping layers within the selected region, while Selection Only excludes deselected layers. These are selection-based exports with different scopes from a named-artboard export. For this task, choosing the named artboard makes the intended output boundary explicit. Export dialog
A worked millimeter check
Suppose a synthetic design has a finished size of 100 × 150 mm, with 3 mm bleed on every edge. Its bleed-inclusive extent is 106 × 156 mm: width is 100 + 3 + 3, and height is 150 + 3 + 3. This calculation is an illustrative check derived from Affinity’s definition of bleed beyond the trim edge. It excludes any extra space for printer’s marks. Setting bleed
Use a simple colored background and a neutral geometric shape to check coverage. The background should extend through the configured bleed area. A larger exported extent with an empty border does not establish that the design fills the bleed: inspect the content at all four corners as well as the dimensions. Affinity’s instructions require the design elements themselves to extend beyond the trim edge. Setting bleed
Which file formats and export settings support bleed?
The current Export Settings documentation lists Include bleed for PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, PDF, SVG, EPS, TGA, WEBP, and JPEG-XL. PSD, EXR, and HDR are absent from that setting’s availability list. Choose the delivery format first, because it determines which settings appear in the Export dialog. Export Settings
Do not assume a print preset has enabled bleed. Affinity’s preset comparison lists Include bleed: No for PDF (for print) and for PDF/X-1a:2003, PDF/X-3:2003, and PDF/X-4. PDF (press ready) lists it as enabled. Check the actual control after selecting your preset. Compare PDF export presets
Include printers marks is a separate PDF option. It controls marks such as crop marks; Include bleed controls inclusion of the configured bleed area. Set each according to the output requirements. Adding marks does not replace extending your artwork into the bleed. Export Settings
For artboard documents, Whole document exports each artboard as a separate PDF page or image file, depending on the format. A named-artboard area exports that artboard alone. Verify this choice when you need one design rather than the complete set. Export Settings
What if you need a continuous editing view beyond the edge?
The documented alternative is a document without artboards. In that document type, disabling View > Clip to Canvas shows objects both on the page and on the pasteboard, including portions extending beyond the page edge. Combine that view with bleed guides to inspect the extension while editing. Clip to Canvas
To prepare a separate working document for this approach, choose File > New, set the finished page dimensions and millimeter units, and leave Artboards disabled. Configure the bleed, turn off Preview Mode, show the bleed guides, and disable Clip to Canvas. Affinity documents the Artboards option as creating an artboard in the new document. This is a document-structure choice rather than an artboard unclipping control. Creating new documents, Preview mode, Clip to Canvas
For an existing artboard project, the practical sequence is to retain millimeters, use bleed guides for positioning, and inspect bleed-inclusive output in the Export dialog. If seeing the full off-page artwork continuously is essential, choose the documented page-based viewing path for that work. Keeping the guide, editing view, and export checks separate makes it clear what you have actually verified.
Sources
- Setting bleed — Affinity Help Center.
- About artboards — Affinity Help Center.
- Clip to Canvas — Affinity Help Center.
- Document units — Affinity Help Center.
- Preview mode — Affinity Help Center.
- About exporting — Affinity Help Center.
- Export dialog — Affinity Help Center.
- Export Settings — Affinity Help Center.
- Compare PDF export presets — Affinity Help Center.
- Creating new documents — Affinity Help Center.