A4 imposition PDF
Multiple cards laid out on an A4 sheet with crop marks. Print on card stock with an office printer and cut with a guillotine. The cheapest route for a few hundred cards.
ID card printing — getting a clean result off the printer
Cards that look fine on screen can come out soft, mis-cut or with an unscannable QR code. This page covers the export settings, sizing and finishing decisions that determine how the printed card actually turns out.
Why exports run at about 800 DPI
A screen-resolution export is the usual reason a printed card looks blurry. At 96 DPI a CR80 card is only about 323 × 204 pixels — fine on a monitor, mushy the moment it is printed at physical size.
Cards here export at roughly 800 DPI — 2688 × 1696 pixels on a CR80 card. That is well above the 300 DPI most print vendors ask for, which leaves headroom: small text, thin logo strokes and QR module edges stay crisp instead of turning into soft blocks.
| Resolution | CR80 pixel size | Result when printed |
|---|---|---|
| 96 DPI (screen) | 323 × 204 | Visibly soft; small text unreadable |
| 300 DPI (print minimum) | 1010 × 638 | Acceptable; fine detail starts to break up |
| ≈800 DPI (this app) | 2688 × 1696 | Sharp, including small text and QR edges |
Choosing your export format
One card per page PDF
Sized to the card itself, for a dedicated PVC card printer that feeds blank CR80 cards. This is what most print vendors will ask you for.
ZIP of PNG files
Individual high-resolution images, one per member. Useful when a vendor has their own imposition workflow, or for digital ID displayed on a phone.
Printing in-house or sending to a vendor
| In-house | Print vendor | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Small and repeat batches, urgent reissues | Large annual runs, PVC cards with lamination |
| Equipment | Card stock and a guillotine, or a PVC card printer | None — send the PDF |
| Turnaround | Same day | Typically a few days |
| Send them | — | The one-card-per-page PDF, plus the card size in millimetres |
A practical middle path: print the joining batch in-house for speed, and send the full annual run to a vendor for durable PVC cards.
Sizing, bleed and cutting
The default is CR80, 85.6 × 54 mm — the same as a bank card, so it fits every standard lanyard holder and wallet slot. If you already own holders, measure one and match it before you print; the card size can be set in millimetres on the template.
- Keep text inside a safe margin. Guillotines and card printers both have a cutting tolerance. Text that runs close to the trim edge will eventually be clipped on some cards in the batch.
- Let backgrounds run to the edge. A background that stops exactly at the trim line shows a white sliver wherever the cut drifts.
- Cut with the crop marks. They exist so the whole sheet stays aligned; eyeballing the first cut misaligns every card after it.
Keeping QR codes scannable
A QR code is only useful if it reads first time at a gate. Three things break it in printing:
- Glossy lamination under direct light. Matte finish scans far more reliably; gloss throws back the light the camera needs.
- Printing the code too small. Keep it at roughly 15 mm square or larger and leave clear quiet space around it.
- Punch slots and seams through the code. Decide where the lanyard hole goes before printing, not after.
Print one card, laminate it exactly as the batch will be finished, and scan it with an ordinary phone before running the rest.
A pre-print checklist
- Confirm the card size matches the holders or blank cards you already have.
- Print one test sheet on plain paper and hold it against an existing card.
- Check the longest name in the batch, not the first record — that is where text overflows.
- Scan the QR on a finished, laminated sample.
- Check the batch report for missing photographs before generating the full run.
- Only then print the whole batch.
Generate print-ready ID cards free → 10 cards, watermark-free, no payment details required.