Quick start
Envelope Creator builds any standard envelope as the flat blank that gets printed and converted, and folds it
up in 3D with the seal flap open or closed. Put the customer's artwork on the front and the flap, choose a
security pattern for the inside, and save the print PDF and the dieline. Open it from Home and pick an
envelope type on the start screen; Envelopes… in the top bar brings the start screen back.
The online edition runs in your browser: your files are never uploaded, and everything it saves is marked as a demo and downloaded.
Sizes and types
95 standard sizes in thirteen families. The width is always the edge along the opening and the depth runs
away from it, so a #10 is 9 1/2 × 4 1/8 and a 9 × 12 catalog is 9 × 12 with the opening on the 9" end.
| Type | Sizes |
|---|
| Commercial / business | #6 1/4, #6 3/4, #7, #7 3/4 Monarch, #8 5/8 check, #9, #10, #11, #12, #14, #16 — diagonal seam, commercial (pointed) flap |
| Window | #6 3/4, #9, #10 and #11 single window; #8 5/8 check, #9 and #10 double window |
| Remittance | #6 1/4, #6 3/4 and #9, with the deep flap that becomes the reply form |
| Wallet flap | #9, #10, 6 × 9 and 9 × 12 |
| Announcement (A-style) | A-1 (4 Bar), A-2, A-6, A-7, A-8, A-9, A-10, A-Long — side seam, square flap |
| Baronial | 4 Bar, 5 Bar, 5 1/2 Bar, 6 Bar, Lee — side seam, deep pointed flap |
| Square | 5" to 9" in half-inch steps |
| Booklet (open side) | 6 × 9 to 10 × 13 |
| Catalog (open end) | #1 (6 × 9) to #15 1/2 (12 × 15 1/2) — centre seam |
| Policy and coin | #9–#14 policy; #1–#7 coin — open end, centre seam |
| ISO metric | C7, C6, DL, C6/5, C5, C4, B6, B5 with a Euro flap, and DL / C5 window; C5, C4, C3, B4 and E4 pockets |
Any size can be typed in, and the Seam and Flap shape can be changed on any envelope: diagonal,
side or centre seam; commercial, square, wallet, baronial, Euro, round, booklet, catalog or remittance flap.
The seal-flap, bottom-flap and side-flap sizes are worked out from the envelope and can each be changed;
Standard flaps puts them back.
Flat and assembled
Three views across the top of the picture:
- Flat — outside: the printed face of the blank, with the cut line in red and the folds dashed in green.
- Flat — inside: the reverse of the blank as it prints — mirrored, because it backs up the outside — with the security pattern, the glue areas, the gum line and the window film patch.
- Assembled 3D: drag to turn, wheel to zoom, double-click to reframe. The first slider folds the blank
up (side flaps, then the bottom flap); the second opens and closes the seal flap. Flat, Flap open and
Flap closed jump straight there, Turn over shows the other side, and Turntable spins it.
A window envelope shows a letter inside with the recipient's address through the window (untick
Show a letter inside to hide it).
Artwork
Every artwork slot takes a PDF (page 1, kept as vector in the print PDF) or a PNG / JPEG image.
- Front: fitted inside the front, or filling it with bleed to the folds.
- Logo and return address: top left of the front. The type size drops on small envelopes so the block still fits. Tick White background to knock a white box out of the artwork behind them.
- Postage: a stamp area (shown on screen only) or a printed permit indicia with your class line and permit number. A white background can go behind either, so the stamp or indicia sits on clean paper.
- Recipient: shown on screen only until you tick Print the recipient on the envelope. Printed, it takes a size, colour, position and angle, and can carry «Column» merge fields.
- Variable data: choose a .csv or Excel file whose first row names the columns, then click a column to drop its merge field into the recipient or a text box. Use the arrows to preview each record. Print PDF then writes one envelope per record (the outside, then the inside, for duplex), and the press sheet fills each blank with the next record, sheet after sheet. Pick the range of records to print.
- Text boxes: any number of extra lines of text on the front. On Flat — outside, click a box to select it: drag it to move, the side squares to change its width, the corner squares to scale the type, and the yellow dot to turn it (hold Shift to snap to 15°; arrow keys nudge, Delete removes it). The same settings are in the form, including the exact angle. Each box has its own font — Helvetica, Times or Courier, or one of fifteen bundled families such as Roboto, Montserrat or Playfair Display, which are embedded in the PDF — with Bold and Italic. Each box can be set to print only when a column equals, contains, starts with, is empty or is not empty, or is greater or less than a value — for example a line that prints only for records where VIP is yes.
- Reset: the button in the top bar puts every setting back to its default — the #10 envelope, the sample addresses, no artwork, text boxes or data file — after asking you to confirm. Saved templates are not touched.
- Folding the panel: click the heading of any card, or a small heading inside one (Recipient, Variable data…), to fold it away; Collapse all and Expand all are at the top. What you fold is remembered.
- Press sheet view: roll the mouse wheel to zoom in and out about the pointer (50% to 800%), drag to pan, and Fit to see the whole sheet again. With variable data, ◀ ▶ (or Page Up / Page Down) step through the sheets and show which records are on each.
- Spot UV & foil: two plates for the front. Give each a mask file (a PDF or image: dark areas are coated, white and transparent areas are not) and/or set any text box or the recipient to Prints as Spot UV or Foil — Ink + Spot UV puts varnish over the ink, Spot UV only and Foil leave the text out of the ink. They show in purple and gold in the preview. Spot UV plate… and Foil plate… write black-on-white plates (one page per record with variable data); on the press sheet, Spot UV sheet… and Foil sheet… lay the same plates out blank for blank with the DDC circles, ready for the DDC-810 and the DFL-700. Tick Also put them in the print PDF to add overprinting spot colours named Spot_UV and Foil for a printer who wants a single file.
- Back: artwork and a line of text on the seal flap, turned so they read on the closed envelope.
- Whole outside: a file that covers the whole flat blank plus bleed, for jobs laid out as a flat blank already.
Security patterns
The pattern prints on the inside of the whole blank so a letter cannot be read through the paper: wavy lines,
guilloche, crosshatch, diamond lattice, basket weave, honeycomb, confetti, fish scales, repeating text (your own words,
e.g. CONFIDENTIAL or the company name), microtext lines, blockout (crosshatch and confetti together) or a solid tint.
Pick the ink colour and set the tint, scale and angle. Patterns go into the PDF as fine vector lines, one ink.
Inside artwork, if any, is laid out as the reverse side prints and goes over the pattern.
Press sheet — multiple up
The Press sheet card lays the flat blank out many-up on a press sheet, the same way Digital Die Cut does it:
rows, turned rows or true-shape nesting, whichever fits the most blanks inside the cutter's margins. The
Press sheet view above the picture shows the result; Front and Back switch between the two
sides of the sheet.
| Cutter | Marks on the sheet |
|---|
DSM-1000 B2
platen die cutter | The Registration Mark Kit bars — the fixed and moving side marks 198 mm from the lead and the conveyance bar at the trail — with the 35 mm reference-edge margin, the 480 × 710 mm cutting area and up to three punches per sheet. |
UD-320
rotary die cutter | The Y bar centred at the lead edge and, in X + Y mode, the X mark — 100 mm from centre on the front and 76 mm on the back, on opposite sides of the sheet, so the machine can tell the faces apart. The sheet must be 210–390 × 297–520 mm, and the paper 106–400 gsm. |
| Digital knife / laser | Locator circles or crosses round the sheet for the cutter's camera. |
| DDC circles | Tick DDC circles for spot UV when the sheet also goes through a DDC-8000 or DDC-810 PRO: circles down both side edges of the front, moved in to 16 mm when locator marks use the outer band. |
Imposed sheet PDF writes page 1, the front (the outside of every blank plus the cutter's marks), and page 2, the
back (the inside print — the security pattern — lined up behind every blank, for a sheet turned over left to right).
Artwork is clipped to each blank's cut line plus up to half the gap, so one blank's bleed never prints on the next.
Cut file PDF writes the same layout as CutContour and Crease spot lines with the cutter's marks, for the die
maker or the cutter. The card also shows the blanks per sheet, the paper used and the sheets for the quantity. Checks warns when
the blank will not fit, the sheet is outside what the cutter takes, or a mark lands on a blank.
UD-320 — turn the artwork 1°. With the UD-320 chosen, tick Turn the artwork 1° clockwise (to the right)
to print the artwork turned one degree clockwise about the centre of the sheet, to match a die that cuts a touch out of square.
Only the artwork and its proof die lines turn — the X and Y marks and the slug line stay square, and so does the cut file. The
turn is made on the front and copied to the back, so the two sides stay in register. Checks confirms every turned blank still
sits on the sheet and clear of the marks.
Saving
| Output | What you get |
|---|
| Print PDF | Page 1 the outside, page 2 the inside (mirrored so it backs up), each the flat blank plus bleed with crop marks and a slug line. Trim and bleed boxes are set. Tick Also put the dieline in the print PDF to add it in its own spot colours. |
| Dieline PDF | CutContour for the outline and the window cut-outs, Crease (dashed) for the folds and Glue (dotted) for the glue areas on the inside — the same page size as the print PDF, so it registers. |
| PNG | The view on screen, at its current angle, for a proof or an email. |
The Output card also shows the flat blank size, which side it opens on, the USPS mail class (machinable letter,
non-machinable, flat or parcel) and how many blanks fit on the chosen press sheet. Checks warns when the seal flap
will not close the back, side flaps meet, a window is too near an edge or the blank will not fit the sheet.
The last envelope and its settings are remembered on this computer and carried by the Suite backup.
Artwork files are not kept — add them again when you reopen, or save a template with the artwork in it.
Templates and showcase samples
The Templates card at the top keeps a whole envelope so a reorder opens exactly as it ran: size, flaps, window,
paper and closure, return address and postage, the security pattern, the output settings and the press sheet. Type a name and
choose Save as template; tick Keep the artwork in the template to keep the artwork too (pieces over 2.5 MB are
left out, and the card says which).
| Button | What it does |
|---|
| Open | Loads the chosen template — every setting and its artwork. |
| Update | Replaces the chosen template with what is on screen now. |
| Export… / Import… | Saves the template as an .iqenvelope file to move it to another PC or send it to a customer, and reads one back. |
Showcase samples are finished envelopes with their own artwork — a wedding baronial with a gold monogram flap and
floral liner, a #10 double-window bank statement with permit indicia and a blockout tint, a red 6 × 6 holiday square with a tartan
liner, a 9 × 12 kraft real-estate catalog, a black-and-gold #3 coin gift-card envelope, a #6 3/4 remittance with a donation form on
the flap, a DL window corporate envelope, and a navy A-7 wedding invitation envelope with gloss Spot UV botanicals and a
gold foil frame and monogram — it opens with both plates already loaded, so it shows how the two masks sit on the
front and what goes out as the Spot UV and foil plates. Open one from the start screen or the Showcase samples list; everything
in it can be changed and saved as your own template. The brands and addresses in the samples are made up.
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