Kickflip allows you to generate PDF printable files in real-life size from customers' designs using the Print area feature. This is a really useful tool for products that can be customized, for example with uploaded images or personalized text.
Adding a print area to your product
Open your product.
From the left side panel, open a Logo question, or create a new one.
From the right side panel, under Display type, next to Apply on, click on + Print area.
A print area will be created. If you have already created a print area, you can select it.
The print area setting panel opens.
Note: Print area can only be used with File upload → Logo and Text input → Text. You will see a small printer icon on these display types, which means they can be added to a print area.
Setting the correct parameters for your print area
Title: We recommend you give your print area a meaningful title (ie: Front print).
Customer editing view: This is the view where customers can add or edit text, upload logo files, and apply transformations.
DPI: This is the resolution of your print-ready file, or how many dots per inches it will have. The higher the DPI, the sharper the printed result will be.
Units: Your print area can be measured in inches, centimeters, millimeters or pixels.
Width and height: Use these fields to set the real life size of the print area on your product.
IMPORTANT
Ensure your canvas width and height are not set to 0.
Bleed area: This is a margin around the print-ready file that will be cut out once the file is printed. It allows you to extend a design outside the real dimensions to prevent an undesirable white outline.
Show quality indicator: Disabling this feature will hide the quality indicator. The quality indicator informs your customer whether their uploaded image quality is high enough for printing, based on the DPI you've specified.
NOTE
The quality indicator won’t be displayed if your print area dimensions are defined in pixels, since it’s based on DPI. DPI requires a physical unit (such as inches or millimeters) to calculate pixel density.
Safe area: This area defines where image or text should be placed to avoid being cut or trimmed when printed. For example, when printing business cards, all text should remain within the safe area.
Positioning the print area on your product
To position the print area on your product:
Select your logo question from the left panel.
In the right side panel of your question, click on the print area located in the "Apply to" box of the display type section.
A panel on the right and a toolbar at the top center of the builder will open for that specific print area.
Click the Move icon in the top toolbar to change the position of your print area. Once it's repositioned, click Done on the right side panel to save the modification.
Display the print area on the right views
If you have multiple views or if your print area needs to appear on different views, follow the steps below to select the correct views.
Select your logo question from the left panel
Navigate to the question settings that opens on the right
Select the print area assigned to your logo question by clicking on the print area next to ''Apply to''. A panel on the right and a toolbar at the top center of the builder will open for that specific print area.
Toggle on the correct views in the toolbar or from the print area settings panel, at the bottom.
Place your print area correctly for each view using the ''Customer editing view'' in the print area settings panel, if required.
Click Done.
TIP
The view toggles at the bottom of the print area settings panel might be hidden by the chat icon. You can move the panel by clicking the six-dots icon at the top of the panel, next to the Done button.
Adding multiple logos images or texts to the same print file
Once a print area is created, it can be reused throughout your product.
If you assign a print area to multiple logos, or texts they will all be present in the same PDF when you download the design files.
Allowing customers to move, resize and rotate a logo image
Once you added your print area to a logo, a new settings section will appear in your logo panel.
Use the move, resize and rotate toggles to decide which actions will be allowed for your customers.
Allowing customers to move, resize and rotate a text
NOTE
The move, resize and rotate settings are only available for multiline texts.
Once you added your print area to a text, a new Allow text editing settings section will appear in your text panel. Use the Move, Resize and Rotate toggles to decide which actions will be allowed for your customers.
NOTE
You have to use the Preview mode to experience the move, resize, and rotate customer experience. It it not displayed in the product builder.
Downloading the print files
Once a product has a print area, the print files will be generated for each print area when the customer clicks on add to cart or share. Learn more.
Print file output
Format: PDF
Color space: sRGB
Color profile: IEC 61966-2-1
FAQs
The colors on the print file does not match the uploaded image
Color spaces and color profiles are complex, when your customers upload an image it can be encoded in different colorspaces and come with it's own color profile.
When Kickflip generates the print file it must convert the colors to the RGB color space. Translating from one color space to another has it's drawback, its not always possible to do a 1:1 translation which explains the differences in color you might see.
We are constantly trying to improve this process to provide a result as close as possible to what your customer is expecting.
There is mismatch between the positions between the design image and the print file
The technology used to preview in the customizer and generate the design images is completely different from the one used to generate the print files. This is necessary because the two use cases have drastically different constraints, where ones focus is a beautiful purchasing experience and extremely fast renderings and the other is producing a file that can be used directly with printers. This means that 100% accuracy is not always possible. However if the difference is outside a reasonable range do not hesitate to contact our team.
Why are the content of the PDF not vectorial
There are a couple reasons:
1. Most of the images uploaded by your customers won't be vectorial, therefore there is no way to convert complex images to vectorial format.
2. Our text rendering engine for the customizer offers complex positioning possibilities like "Text on path", since this is almost impossible to reproduce 1:1 between the technologies described here we made the choice to convert those text to an image using our customizer rendering technology to provide an accurate output.