KDP Bleed Calculator —
Free Document Size Tool 2026

What Is Bleed in KDP Formatting?

Bleed is the extra margin you add beyond the trim line of your document. When Amazon prints and trims your book, there’s a small cutting variance — typically ±0.0625 inches. If a background color or image ends exactly at the trim edge, the cut can leave a thin white strip at the edge of the page. Bleed prevents this by extending your design 0.125 inches past the intended trim edge, so even if the cut is slightly off, no white gap appears.

The key rule is straightforward: if anything in your book — a background color, an image, a design element — extends all the way to the edge of the page, you need bleed. If your book is text-only with white margins, you do not need bleed.

When Do You Need Bleed?

• Full-page illustrations: Children’s books, graphic novels, illustrated non-fiction.
• Colored backgrounds: Any page with a non-white background that extends to the edge.
• Covers: All paperback covers need bleed — the cover image always extends to the edge.
• Section dividers or chapter openers with full-bleed images or colored bands.

When You Do NOT Need Bleed

• Text-only novels, non-fiction books, memoirs with standard white margins.
• Books where all images and design elements stay inside the margin area.
• Kindle eBooks — bleed is a print-only concept and does not apply to digital formats.

How to Set Up Bleed in Your Design Software

The correct approach is to set up your document at the bleed size from the very beginning — not to add bleed at the end. In Adobe InDesign, create a new document at your trim size and enter 0.125 in the bleed fields. A red bleed guide will appear outside your page boundary. Extend any background colors or images to this red line, not just to the page edge.

In Canva Pro, you can enable bleed in your document settings. Canva will show a dashed guide line at the trim edge and the bleed area beyond it. Keep all text and important elements inside the dashed safe-zone line, and extend background colors and images to the outer canvas edge.

When exporting from any software, make sure to export with crop marks and bleed included. In InDesign, enable “Use Document Bleed Settings” when exporting to PDF. Upload this bleed-included PDF to KDP — do not trim it yourself first.