Free Dieline Generator for Folding Boxes

A dieline is the flat drawing of a package: the outline the cutting die follows, the lines where the board is creased so it folds, and the areas that matter to print, such as bleed, the safe area and the glue flap. Cut lines are solid and creases are dashed. Colors vary from printer to printer, so the names of the spot colors matter more than how they look.

Designers place the artwork on top of the packaging dieline, and the printer uses the same file to make the die. The word comes from die cutting. "Dyeline" is a different thing, an old process for copying drawings, so search for dieline or die line when you need a box template.

Boxes are ordered by inside size, written length × width × depth. Length is the longer side of the opening, width the shorter side and depth the height between the closures. ECMA style codes describe the shape of a box, never its size.

Board has thickness, so the crease lines sit half a board away from the inside. Across the box, a crease to crease panel is the inside size plus one caliper and the outside is the inside plus two. In depth the closure lies on the dust flaps, so the depth gets two calipers. Enter whichever size you know: the dieline generator converts it and shows all three in the Math tab.

A reverse tuck end box (ECMA A20.20.03.01) has its top closure on the back panel and its bottom closure on the front, so the two tucks go in from opposite sides. It is the usual choice for cosmetics, card decks and small retail boxes, and its blanks usually nest well on the press sheet.

A straight tuck end box (ECMA A20.20.01.01) has both closures on the back panel, so it opens the same way at both ends. Pick it when the front must look the same at the top and bottom, or for larger cartons such as cereal. The dieline generator draws both from the same sizes, so switch styles and compare.

Send the dieline as a vector file at 100% scale. Printers usually want it on its own layer above the artwork, drawn in a spot color that is set to overprint, so it never knocks a white line out of your design and never prints by mistake. The production PDF from this dieline generator is built that way, with every line type on a named layer.

Run the artwork out to the bleed line, keep text, logos and the UPC barcode inside the safe area, and leave the glue area free of ink and varnish. If your printer has a house template for the same style, compare the two: their machine allowances win.

The classic one is giving outside sizes when the printer expects inside sizes, or forgetting the board altogether, so the product does not fit. Others: no bleed, artwork on the glue flap, a dieline drawn in a process color or saved as a picture, and text that was never outlined.

Structural mistakes show up only after folding: a tuck that is longer than the box is deep, dust flaps that hit the opposite wall, a glue flap under 12 mm. The checks in the dieline generator catch these before you export, and the 1:1 print pages let you fold a real box dieline in minutes.

Folding cartons are mostly made from paperboard between about 14 and 24 points thick, where one point is 0.001 inch. SBS is white on both sides and prints cleanly; kraft gives a natural brown look; CCNB is a recycled board with a grey inside. Over about 23 points, ask your converter to run a trial, and over 1 mm you are into corrugated board, which follows other rules.

Paperboard is stiffer along its grain. The usual advice is to run the grain at right angles to the longest crease, so the panels stay flat and the creases do not crack. The dieline generator works out that direction, marks it with an arrow and lets you change it if your converter prefers otherwise.

A box with a lid is two trays, a base and a slightly bigger lid, and a drawer box is a tray that slides inside a sleeve. Each tray follows ECMA B40.20.00.00: a floor, four walls and corner flaps on the long walls that glue inside the end walls. The dieline generator draws both pieces on one sheet, with a dimension set for each.

The lid is drawn from the outside of the base plus a clearance, 2 mm by default, and the sleeve from the outside of the tray plus the same clearance, so the parts slide without rattling. Fold the box in 3D to see the lid go on or the drawer slide in, or start from a ready made size in the box template library.

Poker size playing cards are 2.5 × 3.5 in and bridge size cards are 2.25 × 3.5 in. A good card box leaves a little room around the cards, so the presets add about 1/16 in. Deck thickness depends on the card stock, so stack your cards and measure them before you trust a preset.

Card boxes usually get a thumb notch, a half circle in the front panel that makes the tuck easy to pull out. Turn it on under Tuck and dust flaps, set its radius and print a box dieline at home to test the fit before you order.