Guides

What you need to know before you order a box, written out properly rather than buried in a tooltip.

• What is a dieline? The flat drawing behind every printed box — A dieline is the flat plan a box is cut and creased from. What the lines mean, how cut and crease are marked, and what a printer needs from you.
• Corrugated or folding carton? Choosing between FEFCO and ECMA — Corrugated board and folding cartonboard are different materials with different standards, styles and thicknesses. How to tell which one your product needs.
• Mailer boxes explained — How ecommerce mailer boxes are built, what separates 0427 from 0426 and 0472, and how to size one so the product arrives intact without paying for air.
• Dieline file formats — What SVG, DXF and 1:1 PDF are each good for when sending a dieline to a converter, how cut and crease layers survive each format, and what to check before you send.
• Glue lap and manufacturer's joint — What a glue lap is, why it is also called the manufacturer's joint, how wide to make it, and which panel it should be attached to.
• Putting artwork on a dieline — How to lay print artwork over a packaging dieline: bleed past the cut, safe margins inside it, which panels end up hidden, and what to send the printer.
• FEFCO codes explained — What FEFCO codes mean, how to read the four digits, and what each of the nine groups covers — from slotted shipping cases to interior fitments.
• How to measure a box: inside, outside and crease-to-crease dimensions — The three ways a box can be measured, why they give different numbers, which one your supplier means, and how to avoid ordering a box that is one board thickness wrong.
• Corrugated flutes and board calipers — What corrugated flutes are, how B, C, E and the double-wall combinations differ, typical calipers in mm, and why board thickness changes your dieline.
• Dieline glossary — Plain definitions of the terms that appear on a packaging dieline: crease, score, slot, glue lap, dust flap, gusset, crash lock, caliper, flute and the rest.

Every style

There is a page for each of the 244 FEFCO codes built here, with its construction, its blank and whether it has been checked against the plate. Browse them all, grouped, or open the generator and search the catalogue directly.