Here are some tips for getting the most out of your home printer, and some shortcuts to easily trim and assemble your printed pieces.

1. PRINTING ON YOUR HOME PRINTER:
Let’s look at the PDF file you’ve downloaded from the site. (If you want help getting to this stage, try our ‘Customize Wedding Designs’ tutorial.)  In the top menu bar of your screen you will see FILE and at the bottom of that drop down menu PRINT. When you click print, a menu window will open up, and in the middle of the window you will see PAGE SCALING. Ensure that is set on NONE (unless you need to reduce your print for a backer card).

2. Test this setting with one print then repeat those steps and include the quantity of copies you need.

3. TRIMMING: To make your trimming easy and fast, purchase a rotary trimmer from an office supply store. They start around $30, though if you’ve got a lot of stationery to go through we recommend a higher quality trimmer. One trick that I found works well with these trimmers is to mark the exact measurement of the finished piece with tape on the board of your trimmer. This helps avoid miscuts and speeds the process along.

4. Another great time saving option is to take your stack of prints to FedEx Office where they will trim up to 250 cards for approximately $7.00.

5. ASSEMBLING/FOLDING: Most of our designs are complete after trimming, but there are some thank you cards and programs that require folding. One trick to getting a smooth fold is to score the card first. Start by finding a surface that has a bit of flexibility like a piece of poster board. Mark your area so that you can easily line up the printed piece and include marks for the top and bottom of the score line. Place your printed piece on the board and align with the marked guide. Overlay a ruler (metal is best) with the edge on the spot where the piece will fold. Using a blunt thin edge like the back of a butter knife, create an indentation onto the card stock paper. This will make it easy to fold and create a clean finish.

Take a look at our blog for many more ways to add flair to your stationery!

Our designs are beautiful, and when you match them with the right printer, paper and envelopes you can give your invitations the look of professional, custom stationery without having to spend top dollar. Happily, good quality in these areas is surprisingly affordable.

PRINTERS:  The great news is that a quality printer suitable for creating your own wedding stationery is no longer expensive. Kodak, HP, Epson and Canon all have models that sell between $100-$200 and produce very good print quality. In fact, most of the pictures on our site are of stationery printed on our $150 HP Photosmart Plus printer. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for initial setup, and to get the best result from your printed designs, view our PRINT, TRIM & ASSEMBLE section.

PAPER:
WEIGHT & SIZE: Cover weight or card stock paper (usually between 80-100 lbs) works really well with home printers. Our designs are set up for a standard letter size (8.5X11). If you choose to print on a lighter weight paper, we suggest you select a design that does not have heavy ink coverage as it will saturate the paper and cause it to curl.
COLOR: Although all of our templates look great on white paper, you can customize your design even more by choosing a style that would look beautiful printed on a pink, cream, yellow or pastel paper. The black and white templates look divine on any of these. Some craft stores offer their papers in single sheets, so you can test the color before purchasing a larger quantity. Remember that your printer may not print on some papers such as a high gloss, a heavily textured paper or one with a metallic finish, though these are great choices for envelopes and backer cards.

ENVELOPES:  SIZE AND COLOR: Most of our invitation designs are 5″X7″ and created to fit into an A7 envelope. There are a few that are 4″X9″ which will fit into a #10 envelope as well as some square designs that are created for the 5.25” square envelope. The announcements, thanks you cards, response cards and save the date cards are all 4″X5.25″ and will all fit into an A2 envelope. Envelopes are a great way to add some flair, and you can find a variety of colors and styles to enhance your printed materials. If you are unable to find the right color or size at your local store, there are several online paper suppliers with good selections.

1.       First up, select a design from the site. Remember you can find designs by browsing a stationery type at the top of the page, by choosing color, style, theme or season from the Homepage index, or by searching for something specific in the search box at the top.

2.       Click on the ‘Personalize Online!’ button to begin.  The boxes on the left contain the editable text for the design, broken up into different sections. Each section has its own font and text size, which means you can add your own information and keep the great look of the design. Once you have added your personal information into these fields, click the grey ‘Update Preview’ button above the image to see your changes.

3.       We have tried to make the customizing area as flexible as possible. A good rule of thumb is that the quantity and layout of your text in the left hand boxes will be mirrored on the design. Larger boxes can contain larger amounts of text, though a really huge amount may affect other areas of the page. Equally, your text will never go off the side of the design, but you may need to hit ‘Return’ (‘Enter’ on some keyboards) to keep it inside a particular border so use new lines when you need to. Play around, use the ‘Update Preview’ button often and see what you can create.

4.       The grey buttons above the image are your control panel. Using them, you can zoom in or out of the image for more detail of an area or an overview of the whole design. If you want to go back to the original view, hit ‘Reset.’ The ‘Save’ button stores a copy of your edited design to your MyHome space on the site. You will be asked to name the document, and if you want to update your changes just keep the name the same and hit ‘Save’ again. You can access MyHome on the navigation bar and then go to the ‘Template’ tab to see your saved designs.

6.       The ‘Download PDF’ button takes your personalized design and creates a PDF file that will open in a new tab or window of your web browser. It is now ready for printing on your home printer using the ‘Print’ button in the top left corner of the PDF image. Here you can save your design as a PDF document anywhere on your computer or a thumbdrive, for example.  If you have problems, you may need to install Adobe Reader to open the file. It’s free and you can download it using the link at the bottom of the step-by-step page. Some of the artwork may appear pixelated at this point, however, when you print you will have a sharp and beautiful design.

7.     You may see a ‘Preview only’ watermark on your print at this stage. In the free trial, we use the watermark as a friendly reminder of who designed the artwork you have infront of you. After you’ve joined the site then all of the designs will of course be watermark-free. If you’re a site member but still see the watermark, remember to sign in at the top of the page.

8.    If you forget to save your edits, don’t worry. If you press ‘Quit’ or navigate away from the customizing page without saving, you’ll be prompted with another chance to do so.

Happy customizing!