Thanks for your response, Wolfgang. I just spoke to my printer and he confirmed that in perfect binding, the sheets are cut individually, the same way they are in wire binding. This is the method our previous printer used as well. He said he has heard of large runs of books that are hundreds of pages and being printed in quantities of thousands, in which the signatures are set up using spreads and then the edge is cut.

You could make the argument that the inside edge of each page will be hidden in the spine and so it’s not a huge concern, but the printer said that it’s best to be safe and set up the bleed.

Setting up a gap manually is an interesting suggestion, but isn’t really an option because I often use images that cross the spine. If I left the bleeds, I wouldn’t be getting an accurate visual as far as whether they are lining up.

Again, I appreciate your response.

My issue is that if I export to pages from spreads that had bleeds on all four sides, then the exported pages will not have graphics that extend to the bleed marks on the inside edge. For perfect binding they cut each page individually and it needs to have bleeds on all four sides.