Printing Tips

Follow these tips to print my gift tickets, gift certificates, labels and other printable templates at home or at a copy shop, so your gift looks its best. How you print depends on which type of template you have. Your product page tells you if it’s a Canva template or an Adobe Reader template.

Adobe Reader templates

Printing Adobe Reader templates at home

Here are some tips to help guide you through printing on your home color printer:

  1. Print from the free Adobe Acrobat Reader DC only. Other PDF readers will often print out with weird colors or alignment!
  2. Simply click on the print icon or select the menu option File > Print.
  3. Print on 8.5×11 inch (USA) or A4 (Australia) size paper.
  4. Choose the type of paper you want to print on:
    • Gift Tickets & Gift Card Holders: Choose the thickest white cardstock your printer will allow.
    • Prescription Labels & Coupon Books: I like to use regular white computer paper.
  5. Check the level of ink in your cartridges (a simple step but one that many people forget!)
  6. Select “Actual Size” under the Page Handling & Size option unless you specifically want to print out your template smaller. If you do wish to print smaller/larger you can adjust the Custom Scale % setting to suit.
  7. Select the best quality printing option from your Print Setup Dialog Box.
  8. If your template prints without the editable text (or graphics) showing, try selecting the “Print as Image” checkbox. This is found in the Adobe Reader Print Dialog Box by clicking on the Advanced button – see this screenshot for help in locating this option.  Selecting this can help with how your printer parses the file.

Printing Adobe Reader templates at a copy shop

If you don’t think your home printer is up to the task of printing out your file, you can personalize your template, save it to a flash-drive/USB and take to your local copy shop for printing instead. Here are some tips:

  1. Choose a copy shop that uses Adobe Reader to print. Typically this includes:
    • Staples
    • Office Depot/Office Max
    • Fedex (formerly Kinkos)
    • Insource (in Canada)
    • UPS (in Canada)
    • Officeworks (in Australia)
  2. Print on 8.5×11 inch (USA) or A4 (Australia) size paper.
  3. Choose the type of paper you want to print on:
    • Gift Tickets & Gift Card Holders: I recommend the thickest white cardstock your Copy Shop has (300gsm/110lb is ideal).
    • Prescription Labels & Coupon Books: I like to use regular weighted white paper.
  4. Ask the copy shop to print at “Actual Size” NOT scaled (unless you specifically want to print out your template smaller).
  5. Do not use the online uploaders of these copy shops – they don’t work with editable files and will often cause fonts to revert to standard fonts in the uploading process. Please take your file on a flash/USB drive (or email it) directly to your local copy shop.

Because Adobe Reader templates are editable PDF files and not JPG’s or photo files, you cannot print at photo shops/photo labs such as Walmart, Walgreens, Costco, Target, CVS etc.

Canva templates

Printing Canva templates at home

Here are the steps for printing your finished Canva design on your home color printer:

  1. In Canva, click Share (top right), then Download.
  2. Choose PDF Print as the file type and click Download.
  3. Open the downloaded PDF and print it at Actual size (100%), not “Fit” or “Shrink”.
  4. Select the best quality option in your print settings.
  5. Choose your paper:
    Gift Tickets & Gift Card Holders: the thickest white cardstock your printer will allow.
    Prescription Labels, Coupon Books & Santa printables: regular white computer paper works well.
  6. Check the ink levels in your cartridges before you start.

Printing on A4 paper? My Canva templates are made for US Letter paper (8.5 x 11 inches). Choose “Fit” for full-page designs, and “Actual size” for smaller items like tickets and labels.

Most home printers can’t print right to the edge of the paper, so a thin white border is normal.

Printing Canva templates at a copy shop

  • Download your design from Canva as a PDF Print file.
  • Take it to your local copy shop on a USB drive, email it to them, or use their online uploader. Canva PDF Print files have the fonts built in, so they usually upload without problems. Check the preview before you order.
  • Ask them to print at Actual size (100%), not scaled.
  • Choose your paper: the thickest white cardstock they have for gift tickets (300gsm/110lb is ideal), or regular white paper for labels and coupon books.

Want to email or text your gift ticket?

Canva templates: In Canva, click Share > Download and choose JPG or PNG. Then attach the image to your email or send it by text. See my Emailing your gift ticket guide for more help.

Adobe Reader templates: Going green this year and would like to email your Gift template instead of printing it? I can convert it to a single JPG perfect for emailing here.

Color variations

Please note that the color you see on your computer screen varies greatly from monitor to monitor. As such, there may be color variations from what you see on your screen to the printed product. Print quality and color also varies depending on which printer you use, the type of paper and printer settings.

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