Sundry Works Help · Card

Making a printed card for a painting

Lay out the printed card for the painting.

What it's for

The Card tab lays out a print-ready card for the open painting - title, story, footer details, your logo, and website line - all on a torn-paper background or your own grunge frame. The card is rendered at 300dpi and exported as a PNG you can send straight to the printer.

There are two cards, and the two buttons at the top of the settings, above everything else on the left, choose which one you are looking at. "Story card" is the 6.5 × 4.5 card this tab has always made. "Show label" is a 3.5 × 2 card for a painting with no story yet - just its name and its details, and it is the one you stand beside the piece at a show. The tab remembers which one you were last on, and whichever is showing is the one the buttons at the end of the settings act on.

Building a card

1. Open a painting that has at least one story filed on the Story tab. Without one, press "Show label" at the top of the settings instead - see below.
2. The card prints the painting's story, and there is nothing to pick - the dropdown that used to sit here is gone. A card whose text size you have not set by hand sizes the story to fit on its own, so it reads the whole thing from the start instead of spilling off the bottom. This catches older cards too, not just brand new ones - a card saved before auto-fit existed, sitting at a size too big, is brought back in the moment you open it. Move the Text size slider yourself and that card keeps the size you chose: it is never re-fitted for you again, so a story you have run long on purpose stays long.
3. Above the text size is one line saying where the words on this card come from - the painting's story, its caption, or the "About this art" box, depending on what you have switched on in Configuration - and how many words it is. The button under it goes straight to that box on the Story page: not to the top of it, but to the card itself, outlined for a second so you can see where you landed.
4. The footer lines fill in automatically from the painting's medium, size, price, and availability. Edit them by hand if you like, or press "Rebuild both from the record" to regenerate them.
5. Adjust the sliders to fine-tune title size, story size, footer size, margins, and spacing.
6. For the story, press "Fit" beside the Text size slider to drop straight to the largest size that lands in the space. The slider is taken at its word either way - push it past Fit and the story runs long on purpose, and a note tells you roughly how many lines over it is so the choice is yours rather than a surprise.
7. Press "Make the card" to render it, then click the filename that appears to download it.
8. Or press "Print the card" to send it straight to your printer at its true size, without exporting a file first.

The show label

The story card is laid out around the story, so a painting that has none gets a card with a hole in the middle of it. The show label is the answer: the painting's name, a rule, and the two lines of details underneath - medium, size and mounting, then whether it is for sale, the price, and how to get in touch. Your website line goes small along the foot. There is no room for a logo or a QR code and no attempt to make one.

It is 3.5 × 2 inches, which is Avery business-card stock - 5371, 8371 and the rest of that family, ten to a sheet and already cut. "Print a sheet of 10" fills the whole sheet with this painting's label; "Print just one" puts a single label in the top-left cell so a short run doesn't cost a sheet. Set your printer to actual size rather than "fit to page", or the cards land off their cuts.

There is almost nothing to set, on purpose. The name sizes itself to fit, and the ink, the panel colour and whether there is a border all come from the story card - switch across to change them. The two lines of details are the story card's own, so editing them on either changes both, and "Rebuild both from the record" works the same here.

"Make the label" gives you the same card as a 300dpi PNG, for a print shop or to keep with the painting's other files.

Approving and locking

Once a card looks right, press "Approve and lock" in the bar at the top. Every setting on this tab goes out of reach, so nothing shifts by accident the next time you come past it - but "Make the card" and "Print the card" keep working, which is the point: an approved card is exactly the one you want to go on printing.

The settings stay visible while locked, just dimmed, so you can read what an approved card was set to without unlocking it. Press "Unlock to edit" to change anything; it asks nothing, because this guards against the accidental drag, not against you changing your mind.

Approving marks the step made as well - you can't sign off a look you never built - so the tick turns whether or not you had exported one yet.

The preview

The preview shows the card exactly as it will print. Every slider change is reflected immediately, including a story set larger than the space allows - you see the overflow rather than the app quietly shrinking the text behind your back.

The card's fonts come from Brand type on the Business tab: the painting title and the two footer lines are the Script, the story is the Typewriter, and the website line is the Brand. The show label uses the same Script and Brand. Fit measures the story in whatever Typewriter font you chose.

Card look

• If you've uploaded a grunge frame on the Business tab, it's used as the full-bleed background.
• Without a frame, the app draws a torn white panel with flecked edges. You can adjust the roughness and press "Different tear" for a new random edge.
• The Ink, Panel, and Edge colour pickers override the defaults from the Business tab for this card only.

Placement and branding

The Placement and "Website line and logo" cards give you fine control over exactly where the title, story, footer, logo, and website line sit on the card. These are all slider-driven so you can nudge them into place.

The website line has a box of its own at the top of that card. Leave it empty and the card uses the brand line from your Business tab, so setting it once there puts it on every card. Type something here and this card uses that instead.

Press "Save this as my default" to remember the current layout - new paintings will start from it.

QR code

Tick "Put the QR code bottom right" to drop your QR image onto the card. Size and padding are adjustable. The footer lines re-centre in the space left beside it. The QR image itself comes from the Business tab.

The story keeps clear of the code, so switching the QR off hands its corner back to the text - the space for the story grows by more than half. Press Fit again after switching it either way and the text takes up the room it now has.

The card builds itself from the painting's record - title, story, medium, size, and price. Fill those in on the Paintings and Story tabs first, and they flow through automatically.

The rest of the Help

Start here

• Getting started with Sundry Works - What Sundry Works does and how the tabs fit together.
• Using Sundry Works on your phone - Setting up the phone, whether or not there is a computer as well.

Your catalogue

• What's due and what's unfinished - The first tab: what's coming up, what's still to do, what's unfinished.
• Cataloguing your paintings - Your catalog - add paintings and open the one you're working on.
• Reviewing everything one painting makes - Everything the open painting makes, on one page, with the one decision each needs.
• How to price a painting consistently - Work out a consistent price for the open painting.
• Tracking what sold and who bought it - What sold, who took it home, and what it brought in.
• Printing show labels and a portfolio - More than one at a time: a whole show's labels, or a portfolio to send.

Making things from a painting

• Writing a story for a painting - Generate a written story for the painting and keep the best one.
• Making a printed card for a painting - Lay out the printed card for the painting.
• How to make a certificate of authenticity - A painting's two printed documents: its certificate, and the label for its back.
• Web-sized copies of a painting's photo - Export web-sized copies of the painting's photo.
• Branded posts of your paintings - Branded static posts for Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.
• Making a reel of a painting - Build the vertical reel frame and video for social media.
• Designing an artist's business card - The card you hand out, laid out down to the last millimetre.

Running the business

• Setting up your artist brand - Set up once: your identity, brand assets, colours, and AI key.
• An address book for galleries and collectors - A simple address book for galleries, collectors, suppliers, and more.
• Checklists for shows and studio jobs - Reusable checklists for shows, errands, and anything you repeat.
• A calendar for shows and deadlines - Shows, deadlines, and events, with a countdown to each one.
• All your post comments in one list - What people said on your posts, from every platform, in one list.

Connections and setup

• Posting to Instagram and Facebook - Connect your accounts so you can post directly from Sundry Works.
• Posting your paintings to Threads - A second Meta connection, separate from Instagram and Facebook.
• Posting your paintings to Bluesky - The easiest connection of the four - a handle and an app password.
• Scheduling posts to go out later - Line a post up now and let it go out later, with the computer off.
• Configuring Sundry Works - Where everything plugs in: your social accounts, your website, your AI service, and where the catalogue lives.