Understanding the Printing Box

What Is the Printing Box?

The Printing Box is the area on your customization's canvas that defines what gets included in a print-ready export. Everything inside the Printing Box is exported at the exact physical size you define; everything outside of it is ignored. Think of it as the frame that tells the app "this is the part of the design that actually gets printed."
It's a core building block for merchants who need production-ready files (PDF, print-ready PNG/JPEG) rather than just a preview image of the customer's design.

Setting Up the Printing Box in a Customization

You define the Printing Box while building a customization in the Product Builder:

Open "View Options" > "Print Export".
From the Print Size dropdown, either pick one of the predefined sizes or select "Set Custom Size" and enter the exact physical dimensions of your print area in millimeters.
Click the "Printing Box" button above the canvas to place and resize the box on the canvas.
Make sure it covers the area of the product image where printing should actually occur.
Turn on "Printing Box as Bounding Box". Customers can still move or resize their elements beyond the Printing Box, but anything outside of it becomes invisible, showing them that only what's inside the Printing Box will actually be printed.

Tip: You can also adjust the View Size (in pixels) to better match the aspect ratio of your product image before placing the Printing Box.

The Printing Box in Order Exports

Once orders start coming in, the Printing Box determines what your production files look like. The Print-Ready Export (included in all subscription plans) uses it to export exactly this printing area in the physical sizes you defined in the Product Builder.

Note: There's also a Basic Export, which doesn't rely on the Printing Box. It's rarely used these days; in almost all cases the Print-Ready Export is what you want.

Keep in mind that the Printing Box itself can't be adjusted afterwards for an individual order. If it doesn't fit correctly, you'll need to go back to the customization in the Product Builder and adjust it there for future orders.

How the Printing Box Affects Other Features

A few other features in the app depend on a correctly configured Printing Box:

Metric image sizes: The option to show image sizes in real-world units (cm/inches) in the designer only works when the view has a Printing Box, since the app needs it to translate pixels into physical measurements.
3D Model Preview: When connecting a customization to a 3D model, the aspect ratio of the Printing Box must match the aspect ratio of the model's print area. If they don't line up, the design will appear stretched or misaligned on the 3D preview.

If you have any questions, reach out to us via the in-app chat. We are always happy to help.

Updated on: 14/07/2026

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