Summary
As a print business owner, you’re always looking to save time, reduce costs, and improve your processes. One of the best ways to do all of this is by creating DTF (Direct-to-Film) gang sheets. If you’re not familiar with the term, a gang sheet is a way of arranging multiple designs on a single sheet to use up your material, reduce waste, and increase print efficiency.
But let’s be honest—creating gang sheets isn’t always plain sailing. Many businesses face common issues like wasting material, design adjustments taking too long, and optimizing print layouts. This guide will walk you through the process of how to create a gang sheet and show you how to solve these problems with the right tools and techniques.
How to Create Ready-to-Print Gang Sheets
Follow these steps to easily create gang sheets without any stress or complications.
Step 1: Upload the Artwork and Select the Quantity
The first step to creating a gang sheet is to upload your artwork into the design tool. As a print business, you’ll have multiple designs from various clients, and each one will have different specifications. Imagine you need to print 50 custom t-shirts, each with a different design. In such a case, having a tool that allows you to upload multiple designs at once and arrange them on the gang sheet is key to saving time.
Once uploaded, you’ll need to select the quantity of each design you want to put on the gang sheet. Depending on your order volume, you may need to adjust the quantity for each design. Being able to do this quickly and efficiently helps you manage even the toughest jobs.
Step 2: Choose the Size
One of the biggest problems print businesses face is choosing the right size for their gang sheet. If you use a sheet that’s too big, you’ll waste material; if the sheet is too small, designs will overlap or get cut off. Getting the size right is key to optimizing material usage and print quality. Choosing the right custom size ensures your designs are placed efficiently. You need to consider the design dimensions and how much space each design will take up without leaving wasted space on the sheet.
For example, if you’re using DTF printing on fabric or film, a too big sheet means wasting space, and a too small sheet means designs will overlap or get cut off. Finding the right size avoids both of these issues.
Step 3: Edit Artwork
Before you start arranging your designs, make sure the artwork is clean and ready to print. This means editing to remove any backgrounds that will detract from the final product. Suppose a client gives you a logo with a white background. Without background removal, the design will look odd on transparent film or fabric. This small edit ensures the final product looks crisp and professional.
Clear artwork is especially important when printing designs with logos or intricate elements.
You’ll also need to resize or crop your designs to fit within the gang sheet. These small tweaks may seem time-consuming but are essential to ensure designs are sharp, professional, and print-ready. Background removal is especially important for logos or text-based designs, so make sure to remove anything that will affect the quality of your prints.
Step 4: Duplicate and Use Filters
Once the designs are uploaded and edited, it’s time to duplicate them and arrange them on the gang sheet. One of the best things about gang sheets is you can duplicate the same design multiple times so you’re printing the most from each sheet.
Filters are also useful when you want to add slight variations to designs, especially when you need multiple colors or versions for a large order. Adjusting the design’s color or layout can give each print a unique touch without needing a new design.
Duplication helps if you have multiple shirts with the same logo but different sizes or colors. You can easily arrange those variations on the same gang sheet to streamline your workflow.
Step 5: Use the Library of Designs (If Available)
For businesses short on time or resources, using a library of designs can be a great way to speed up the gang sheet creation process. If your design tool has pre-made templates or artwork, it can save time creating custom designs from scratch.
This is especially useful when you have a large batch order with common elements or designs that need slight modifications. The design library allows you to access a wide variety of templates, which can then be easily added to your gang sheets.
Step 6: Auto-Nesting
This is where the magic happens: auto-nesting. The most efficient way to create gang sheets is to automatically arrange designs so they fit together as tightly as possible. Auto-nesting uses an intelligent algorithm to determine the most economical layout, reducing material waste and making your print job cost-effective.
By using the auto-nesting feature, you can automatically select the smallest possible sheet size, saving time and material. This is especially important when you’re printing large quantities of orders.
Consider a real-life scenario where you are printing multiple designs for an order of 200 t-shirts. Now, without auto-nesting, you would have to manually arrange the designs on the sheet, trying to minimize space, and this could take hours.
Put simply, with auto-nesting, the tool arranges everything in seconds, saving your time while reducing any possible wastage.
Don’t Use Canva to Build Gang Sheets for Your Business
While Canva is great for designing graphics, it’s not suitable for building gang sheets for your business. Here’s why:
- No Auto-Nesting: Canva doesn’t have auto-nesting. So, you will have to manually arrange designs for printing and set up the layout, spending a lot of your valuable time on mundane tasks.
- Limited Control Over Layout: Canva’s drag-and-drop design tools are not meant for the precision required in gang sheet creation. You need control over spacing and alignment to ensure designs fit perfectly.
- Image Editing Limitations: Canva has basic image editing but lacks advanced background removal tools, resizing options, and, most importantly, quality checks like DPI verification, which are necessary for professional print jobs.
In short, if you’re looking to build gang sheets for bulk printing or DTF jobs, Canva is not the tool for you. You need a specialized solution to create gang sheets efficiently and handle the complexity of printing multiple designs in one go.
Upgrade to a better gang sheet solution—save time, avoid mistakes, and improve efficiency.
The Bottom Line
Creating DTF gang sheets is not as hard as it seems; with the right tools, it’s much easier. By following the steps in this guide, starting with uploading your artwork, choosing the right size, editing your designs, duplicating, and auto-nesting, you can optimize your workflow and reduce waste.
So, stop wasting materials and save time by creating ready to print gang sheets. that are Whether you are working with bulk orders, multiple design variations, or just complex layouts, you now know how to create gang sheets for your business in clicks.
If you want to get serious about optimizing your print process, start experimenting with gang sheets and use the features that allow you to get the most out of every print job. Apart from the ease of getting multiple designs printed at once, with this single solution, you also pick the output format (PDF or PNG) as per your requirement.
Ready to Start Building Gang Sheets?
If you’re tired of the simplest of the issues with printing multiple designs at once and need the gang sheet builder for your WooCommerce or Shopify product design tool or any other platform, contact us! Let our experts help you get started with gang sheets and improve your printing efficiency today.
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