Print & Ship

Print & Ship turns a finished game into real, orderable components. It renders the collections you select at print resolution, uploads them to TheGameCrafter (TGC), and creates a game listing you or anyone else can order from.

Everything on this page is a bridge between your ShuffleKit project and a TGC game. Nothing here changes your component data or layouts.

Open it from the sidebar, or from the Cards page: Print & export → Order printed copies opens Print & Ship on the project you are in.

On a phone the two panels are tabs: Your game holds the box list and the game's details, and Preview shows the deck or component you open. Opening a row switches to its preview, and sending switches back to show the progress.

Publishing needs the Indie or Professional plan. On Free or Hobby you can set everything up, including decks, sizes, listing, and media. The footer says "Print & Ship is an Indie feature" and the button reads Upgrade to print until you're on Indie.

If you only need the shortest path to a first proof: select the component collections, check their size and faces, name the game, connect TGC, turn Auto-proof off so you can review on TGC, click Send to TheGameCrafter, and order one copy. The card-specific controls below explain deck backs, copies and packaging; the same page also publishes boards, mats, tokens, dice, meeples, screens, score pads and boxes.

Components first, card details second

Create each physical piece as a collection before you publish it. Print & Ship reads its type, size, valid faces and quantity from that collection, then only offers a matching TGC product. A board cannot be exported as a Poker deck, a D8 gets its eight faces, and a box publishes its single outside dieline.

The workflow is therefore:

1. Create and design your component collections in the workspace.
2. Select one or more collections to include in the game.
3. Review each collection's render, size and print guides.
4. Finish the shared listing.
5. Connect TheGameCrafter and publish.

The rest of this tutorial keeps the detailed card-deck instructions because cards have the most product-specific controls: optional per-card backs, randomization, rarity classes and tuck-box packaging. For the catalog and component setup, start with Components & Collections.

Component publishing rules

In the project you open, every board, mat, token, die, meeple, screen, score pad or box collection with an orderable size is listed in the In the box list, after the decks and marked with its type's icon. They are in the game by default. Untick one to leave that collection out; tick it again to put it back. The collection's own preset decides the product identity, dimensions, faces, and quantity, so when you open it, the heading over its preview only states them: product, size and piece count, then "Its product is fixed by the size this collection was made at, so there is nothing to set here." Decks have more to set because they have card-only controls such as randomization and per-card backs.

The important distinction is printable versus orderable:

• A catalog size that maps to a TGC product can be sent to Print & Ship. The new-collection dialog says so under the name: can be ordered through Print & Ship.
• A custom size can still be exported as images or a PDF, but it is not offered as a TGC product. The dialog reads export to print-ready PDF for those, and Print & Ship counts them in a note under the box list: "N other collections are not listed here, their size either maps to no Print & Ship product, or to one we cannot order yet. They export to print-ready PDF instead."
• D10, D12, and D20 collections are playtable-only. They can be designed and rolled online, but have no matching TGC die here.
• Booklets are intentionally absent from the new-collection catalog until the editor has a proper writing and page-flow workflow. An existing booklet collection remains supported by its export and publishing paths.

Before publishing, check each selected component in the Design editor with its print guides on, then here: click its row in the box list. The preview shows every face at print size (click a tile for a larger view) and names any face that has no layout yet:

If a collection's layout is a different size from its preset, its preview says so: "This is a (product) (size), but its layout "(name)" is W × H px. Resize it to W × H px before sending." Sending stops with the same message until you change the canvas size in Design. Components are not scaled to fit the way a deck can be. A component whose two faces are drawn in different orientations is stopped the same way, since one face would be turned 90° from the other.

Before you start

Print & Ship publishes what your layouts render, so get these right first:

• Component artwork is final. Re-publishing creates a new TGC game rather than updating the old one (more on that below).
• Layouts resolve correctly for every selected item and face. Check with Preview mode and Why this layout?. If a collection's items match no layout at all, the preview says so instead of rendering.
• Collection quantities are set. A card with QTY 3 prints three times; token collections can use higher counts. See Card Collections & Quantities.
• Bleed and safe zones are respected. The print-guide overlay on this page is how you check. See below.

Connecting TheGameCrafter

Print & Ship opens straight on the publish workspace, connected or not. You only need a TGC account at the very end. Until you change what is ticked in the box, or while nothing is ticked, the left panel shows How printing works. It goes away once you add or remove a deck, and it isn't shown for a project you have already sent:

1. Choose what goes in the box: Tick the decks and components from this project in the box list below. 2. Name your game: A name is all TheGameCrafter needs. The description, cool factors and shop images only matter if you sell the game in their shop. 3. Connect and send: Sign in to TheGameCrafter, or make a free account there. ShuffleKit renders every card and piece at print size and uploads them, usually in under 10 minutes. 4. Order a copy: The game lands in your TheGameCrafter account. You order and pay there, and they print and ship it.

If you're not on Indie, it adds "Publishing needs the Indie plan. Everything before that step works on your current plan."

A pill beside Project shows the connection: Not connected, Sign-in expired, or your TGC account name. Clicking Not connected or Sign-in expired starts the TGC sign-in.

The footer asks for things in order. Not on Indie, it shows Upgrade to print. On Indie with no TGC session, it shows Connect TheGameCrafter: "Sign in there, or make a free account, and you come straight back here." After you sign in you land back on this page with everything you set up still there, and the footer switches to Send to TheGameCrafter.

TGC sign-ins last a day. When one runs out, the pill reads Sign-in expired and the footer shows Reconnect TheGameCrafter: "Sign-ins last a day. Everything set up here is kept." ShuffleKit also checks the session just before it uploads, so a tab left open overnight asks you to reconnect instead of failing halfway.

Careful with the account-name pill: clicking it disconnects the account rather than opening a switcher. Its tooltip says so, and it turns red on hover. Reconnecting is just another sign-in round-trip and nothing is lost, but it's an easy misclick.

Choosing component collections

Print & Ship works on the project you opened it from, named in the Project field at the top of the left panel. To print another game, switch projects with the project picker at the top of the sidebar; the page moves to that project's Print & Ship. Printing is for the project's owner: a project someone shared with you shows Only the owner can print this project, with Open its cards to go back to designing and exporting it. Under the Game name sits In the box: one row for every deck and every orderable component in the project, each with a tick box, its size or product, how many cards or pieces it prints, and its price for one copy. Decks start ticked when the project has three or fewer, otherwise just the first is. A deck picked this way that turns out to have no cards is dropped again. Once you tick or untick a deck, Print & Ship remembers that selection for the project. Components start ticked (see above).

Under the rows come the one-off Game setup fee and the Estimated total, so the rows and the fee add up to the total. While the page is still counting cards, each ticked row shows a grey bar where its price goes, the total reads Working out the price, and the footer Pricing one copy….

A project with cards but no deck offers Create a deck from all N cards. One with no cards at all links to Add cards.

• Click a row to open it on the right: its settings sit at the top, its preview under them. Clicking a row that is unticked puts it in the box and opens it.
• Untick a row to leave it out of the game.
• Each deck carries its own card size, back, copies, options and packaging, set in the row of controls over its preview.
• A deck with no cards says No cards yet, so it stays out, and is not sent even if ticked.

Under the Project field, Printing somewhere else? Export a print-ready PDF opens the Cards page's export dialog on the PDF format, for a printer other than TGC. See Import & Export.

One TGC game can contain several decks: a core set plus two expansions is one listing with three card components.

Card size

Card Size starts on Poker. All 21 TGC stock sizes are here, with dimensions in inches and the pixel size of the file TGC receives:

Badges can appear beside a size: Exact match (green), Exact match, rotated (green, the same size turned sideways), Best fit (blue, the closest aspect ratio when nothing matches exactly), and Premium (purple).

The pixel numbers include bleed

This trips people up. The 825x1125px shown next to Poker is the upload size, meaning the visible card plus TGC's ⅛-inch bleed on all four edges. Your layout should be authored at the cut size, which is 75px smaller in each dimension: 750x1050px for Poker. ShuffleKit extends the bleed outward for you at publish time.

So a Poker layout at 750x1050 earns the Exact match badge on the selected size.

A landscape layout at 1050x750 is the same card turned sideways. TGC makes each card size in one orientation only, so ShuffleKit turns the artwork a quarter turn for print, at full quality with no scaling, and says so in a green Exact match, rotated for print box.

Anything else gets an amber warning naming both numbers:

Dimension mismatch: Your layout is 825x1125px but Poker prints at 750x1050px (plus bleed). Cards will be scaled to fit.

Scaling softens art and can push text out of the safe zone. If you need a different size, change the Canvas size in the layout editor and re-check, rather than letting the scaler do it.

Card back

Two kinds of choice:

• Auto: per card (default): each card's back is chosen by your back-layout conditions.
• A specific back layout: every card in the deck gets that one back. The help text becomes "This one back prints on every card in the deck."

On Auto, the help text spells out the fallback and names it:

Each card's back is chosen by your back-layout conditions; cards with no match use a dark back.

That last part matters. A card that matches no back condition and has no starred default back will print with a plain dark back, which looks like a bug in a finished product. Make sure one back layout is unconditional and starred. Once you have, this line names it instead of "a dark back". With no back layouts at all, it reads "No back layouts yet, cards print a dark back."

The preview panel confirms what you'll get, under the card grid:

When your conditions pick two backs, the heading reads Card Backs: 2 designs, the tiles are labelled Variant 1, Variant 2 (and Default for cards that fall back to the shared back), and the line under them says:

Different backs print per card, chosen by your layout conditions. To print one shared back instead, pick it under Card Back above.

With one back for the whole deck the heading is just Card Back, over "Shared across the deck. This same back prints on the reverse of every card. Change it under Card Back above." A back that uses card-linked fields reads Card Backs: per card, and each card gets its own back image at publish.

Two backs in one deck is legitimate for faction or expansion decks, but it does mean the deck isn't shuffle-anonymous. Players can tell cards apart from the back, so check that's intentional.

Copies, deck options and packaging

A deck's settings are one row over its preview: Card Size, Card Back, Deck copies, Tuck Box and a Deck Options button. The line under the row explains the card back choice.

Deck copies: how many identical copies of this deck go in the game (1 to 99).

Deck Options → Randomized Deck: "Cards are shuffled randomly in each copy." The button opens a small panel, and reads Deck Options · Randomized while it's on. Leave it off for a normal deck. Turn it on for booster-style products. Switching it on reveals Rarity Classes: up to five named tiers, each with a quantity, for defining what a randomized pack contains. Add Class adds a row with a name (Class 1 name) and a quantity from 1 to 99; the × at the end of a row removes it.

Tuck Box: None, cards only by default, or a tuck box for the card size, named by how many cards it holds (Poker Tuck Box (36) up to Poker Tuck Box (108) for Poker, Euro Poker and Foil Poker, and the boxes TGC makes for Bridge, Tarot, Jumbo and Square). Pick one and a Box Art control appears beside it: Choose Box Art from your media library, or click the thumbnail to change it. The Tuck Box picker only appears for card sizes TGC makes boxes for.

Note unique is not the same as printed. When a card is in the deck more than once, the preview heading says both, Card fronts · 19 designs, 21 cards printed, and the deck's row in the box list counts the printed cards, Poker deck · 21 cards. Quantities come from the deck, not this page.

If no back design reaches any card in the deck (no back layout at all, or none whose conditions match), the back preview shows the plain dark back with a warning that every card prints with it.

The card preview and print guides

The right panel renders every card exactly as it will print. The tiles grow to fill the panel; click one to open a larger view, guides included. The viewer names the card and shows N of M; step through with its Previous and Next arrows or the ← and → keys, and press Esc to close it. Components open the same viewer.

If nothing renders, the panel says why: (deck) has no cards yet with Open Cards, No layout yet with a Design a layout button, No cards match a layout with Review layouts, or Couldn't load layouts with Try again. An empty component reads Nothing in (name) yet with Add pieces.

Print guides (the checkbox beside the Card fronts heading, ticked by default) overlays two boundaries on each card, explained by the legend beneath:

Check this before every publish. Cutting is mechanical and drifts by a millimetre or two, so anything between the safe zone and the card edge risks being clipped, and anything that stops short of the edge risks a white sliver.

Turn the guides off to judge the artwork itself. Turn them on before you publish. Walk the whole grid, not just the first row. Border-hugging titles usually only appear on one or two cards.

Quantity badges (x3, x4) appear on cards printed more than once.

Print checks and empty fields

Two notices can sit above the preview, for decks and components alike. They are the same ones the PDF export shows:

• "N cards have empty fields that print blank". Details names the cards and columns, with Fill them with the column name instead for a proof.
• "Print check: N cards may not print the way they look". Details lists, card by card, text within 1/8 in of the cut, pictures under 300 DPI at the size they print, and backgrounds that stop before the edge so the bleed shows the dark backdrop.

Both are warnings, and publishing isn't blocked. The × on each hides it until something new turns up, and the upload then goes ahead as it is.

The TGC listing

Under the project (and How printing works, while it shows), the left panel holds the game itself: a Game name field ("The only thing TheGameCrafter needs to make your game."), and under it a folded Shop listing marked Optional, which turns to Ready for the shop once everything the shop needs is filled in. Click it to open the sections for the game's page: Game Details, Categorization, Documents, Cool Factors, Players & Gameplay and Game Media. All but Documents and Game Media carry an Auto-fill with AI link that drafts content from your actual cards and rules. The In the box list sits between the name and the listing; a deck's own settings (card size, back, copies and so on) are on the right, over its preview.

Only the Game name is needed to send the game and order copies. Selling the game in TGC's shop also needs:

1. Short Description
2. Cool Factors (all three)
3. Game Logo
4. Shop Backdrop
5. Advertisement
6. Action Shot

Fill them in here and they go up with the game, or add them later on TGC.

Game Details

Description (up to 5,000 characters, shown on the TGC game page), Short Description (search results and previews, needed for the shop), Edition, Website, BoardGameGeek ID.

Categorization

Genre, Theme, Setting, Game Type, Audience, Primary Mechanic. "Help buyers find your game on TGC. All fields are optional." Optional, but this is how browsers find you.

Documents and Cool Factors

Documents takes a PDF rulebook (Choose PDF, max ~15 MB), uploaded to TGC when you send the game.

Cool Factors are three selling points shown on your shop page, max 60 characters each, with a live character counter. The shop needs all three. Write the three reasons someone would buy the game.

Players & Gameplay and Game Media

Min/Max Players (1 to 99), Play Time and Min Age (both picked from ranges), Suggested Retail Price (in USD, shown on the TGC shop page).

Game Media covers the four images TGC's shop page uses. An empty slot offers Choose (from your media library), Generate with AI and Upload; once filled, those become Change / Regenerate / Upload, plus an ✕ to clear.

The shop needs all four. You can order copies of the game without them.

Cost estimate

The footer shows the estimated total for one copy beside what's in the box, for example ≈ $14.20 for one copy. Where that number comes from is the In the box list: each ticked row carries its own price (a deck's includes its extra copies and tuck box), then the one-off Game setup fee, then the Estimated total.

Estimate based on single-copy pricing. Actual cost may vary.

When something in the game has no published price, that line also says how many items the estimate leaves out. It's an approximation from published TGC list prices, before shipping, tax, and any volume discount. Use it to compare configurations (Poker vs Mini, tuck box vs none). Budget a print run from the real numbers TGC sends back after you send the game.

Sending the game to TheGameCrafter

Under the Shop listing sits an auto-proof checkbox:

Auto-proof components so the game is orderable right away. Uncheck to review each component yourself on TheGameCrafter first.

It starts ticked. Leave it on for a quick personal order. Turn it off for a real print run. Proofing yourself on TGC is the last chance to catch a size or bleed mistake before it's orderable.

At the bottom sits a sticky footer. Its first line says what goes in the box (2 decks, or 1 deck + 2 components) and what one copy should cost. Until the game has a name it shows a Name your game to send it link that puts the cursor in the Game name field, and the button stays off. (Before that, the footer may be showing Upgrade to print or Connect TheGameCrafter instead; see Connecting TheGameCrafter above.)

Then one button, Send to TheGameCrafter, which sends everything ticked in the box as one game. To send one deck on its own, untick the rest first. A deck with no cards stays out of the game; its row says so. Once the project has been sent before, a line under the button reminds you that sending again makes a second game.

Sending shows its stage as it goes: Rendering cards… and Uploading to TGC… for each deck and component in turn, then Creating game…, then Sent! Every card is rendered at full resolution, uploaded, and assembled into the TGC game. It usually takes under 10 minutes. Cancel stops it partway.

If some cards come out of rendering without all of their artwork, sending stops on a Some artwork is missing dialog that lists them. Cancel stops the send, and sending again retries those cards. Send anyway uploads those cards as they are, and the rest of that send goes ahead without asking again. If a step fails, the panel shows the error with Retry, which sends it again, and Back to config, which returns to your settings.

After sending

A success panel appears:

Your game is ready on TheGameCrafter!

Components are pre-proofed so you can order right away. We recommend ordering a single proof copy first to check print quality before a larger run.

with View Game on TGC and Send another (back to the settings for the next game). The panel says "pre-proofed" whether or not auto-proof was on; if you turned it off, proof each component on TGC before you order. Below it, ShuffleKit pulls TGC's real numbers back:

• Cost Breakdown: the actual per-component costs and Total (1 copy), replacing the pre-publish estimate.
• Bulk Pricing: TGC's quantity tiers as a Qty / Per Unit / Total table. This is where a print run starts to make financial sense.
• Publish to Shop: optional. It makes the game purchasable by anyone rather than just you, and asks you to confirm first. Once done, the panel confirms Published to TGC Shop, and the status line you see on later visits gains a Shop page link. If any shop field was left empty, the button is replaced by a line naming what the shop still needs; add those on the game's TGC page and publish it to the shop from there.

Return later and the top of the panel shows one status line:

✓ On TheGameCrafter as O world · View / order · Shop page

(Shop page only once it's in the shop.) There is no separate "send again" button: the footer's Send to TheGameCrafter is the one way to send, and it adds: "Sending again makes a second game on TheGameCrafter. The one already there stays as it is." Read that twice. Sending again does not update the existing TGC game. It creates a new one. So:

• Fix everything you can before the first send.
• Expect to tidy up duplicate games on TGC if you iterate.
• For small text corrections, editing directly on TGC may be less disruptive than sending again.

View / order opens the game on TGC, where you place the actual order.

A checklist before you send

1. Every card's layout resolves correctly. Check a few of each type with Why this layout?
2. Preview mode in the layout editor, paged through every card, no overflow.
3. Card size shows Exact match (or Exact match, rotated). Remember your layout should be the cut size, 75px smaller each way than the number in the list.
4. Card back set, with an unconditional starred back so nothing falls through to the plain dark back.
5. Deck quantities correct. Compare the designs against the cards printed in the preview heading, and check every row in In the box is meant to be there.
6. Print guides on, whole grid walked, nothing outside the safe zone. Read the Print check and empty-fields lines if they appear.
7. Copies, randomization and packaging set.
8. The game has a name and TheGameCrafter is connected. If you plan to sell it in TGC's shop, the short description, cool factors and four shop images are filled in too.
9. Rulebook PDF attached if you have one.
10. Auto-proof off for a real print run, so you can proof on TGC first.
11. Order one copy first. Always. Screen and paper disagree more than you expect.