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Notepads & StationeryOur A6 notepads add a personalised touch to every note taken or given. They also work great as reward or merit certificates. See our online design tool and make them yours.

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How to design custom A6 notepads

Start designing your notepads

What you can make

A6 notepads (105 × 148 mm) with your own design on every page: gifts for teachers, staff and clients, party favours, or your own branded pads. You design a set: each design becomes its own notepad, and an order is at least 4 designs.

Before you start

  • All you need is a web browser, on a computer or a phone. There is nothing to install.
  • You do not need an account to design or to order. You only need one to save a design and come back to it later.
  • Everything you add can be moved, changed or deleted until you approve your proof. Nothing is printed before that.

Starting your design

On the product page, press Start designing. The designer opens straight away.

Finding your way around

On a computer, your notepad is in the middle. The list of pages runs down the side: Design, Text and the rest, ending with Your pad. The price is at the bottom of the side panel and updates as you go. Along the top are Save, Help (this guide, in a new tab), Menu, and the undo and redo arrows.

On a phone, your notepad fills the screen.

  • The round + button adds things: Text, Picture, Graphics, Shape, Background and Templates.
  • The price at the top opens Your pad.
  • The bar at the bottom has Menu, Undo, Redo, Save and Finalise. Menu → Help: how to use this designer opens this guide.
  • When something is selected, a button above the canvas, such as Edit text, opens its settings.

Your design: the list of everything on it

Design shows Your design: every item on your notepad, one per line. When it is empty, big buttons offer the ways to start.

  • Click a line, or the item itself, to select it.
  • The eye hides an item or shows it again. The arrows move it in front of, or behind, the others. The bin deletes it.
  • Below the list, Add more gives you the same buttons again.

Adding text

  1. Open Text and type in the box that says Type your text.
  2. Choose Straight text or Curved text, a font, bold or italic, and the alignment.
  3. The sliders set the Size, the Curve (a dome, a cup, or flat), the Spacing between letters and the Line spacing, and Outline thickness for a line around the letters.
  4. Pick the Text colour and the Line colour.
  5. Press Add your text.

To change text later, click it on your notepad. Its settings open again and every change shows straight away.

Pictures and QR codes

Upload adds a photo or picture from your computer or phone. Any picture file works. The bigger the picture, the sharper it prints.

QR Code: type a web address in Link or text, choose the Color and Background, check the preview, and press + Add QR code.

Tip: scan the QR code with your phone before you order, to check it opens the right page. A QR code is never smaller than 10 mm, so phones can read it.

Graphics

Graphics is our library of ready-drawn pictures. Search it, or pick a category, and click one to add it. It prints in full colour.

Click a graphic on your notepad to change it: Swap it for another, set its size and angle, flip it, or Duplicate it.

Shapes

Shapes draws a Rectangle, an Ellipse or a Polygon (choose how many Sides), with rounded Corners if you like.

Give it a Fill colour or a texture, make it see-through with Transparency (even all over, or fading in a line or a circle), and add an outline with Outline colour and Thickness. Then press Add shape.

Background

Background is one of the buttons on Design (and in the + menu on a phone). Choose a flat Background colour, or a texture or pattern and its Texture size. No texture goes back to a plain colour. Press Done.

Your pad: building your set of designs

A notepad order is a set of designs, made one at a time. Your pad is where you build the set (on a phone, tap the price at the top, or the A6 chip under your notepad).

  1. Design your first notepad.
  2. Press Save this design to the queue. It appears below as a numbered picture.
  3. Design the next one, and save it to the queue too.
  4. To change a saved design, click its picture. Whatever is on the canvas is saved first, so nothing is lost. The × removes a design from the set.

The page counts as you go, for example 3 of minimum 4 designs. The design on the canvas counts too. The price is for the whole set and drops as the set grows.

Moving, resizing and layering

  • Move: drag the item.
  • Resize: drag a corner handle. Turn: drag the round handle.
  • Centre: on a computer, the bar under your notepad has Centre ↕, Centre ↔ and Centre on notepad for the selected item.
  • In front or behind: use the arrows on Design.
  • Undo and redo: the curved arrows at the top (on a computer, Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z work too).
  • Fine work: zoom in with the + and − buttons, and use Pan to move around.

The edge warning

Each pad is trimmed to A6 after printing. Background colours and pictures print 2 mm past the edge, so no white edge shows when the pad is trimmed, and that 2 mm is cut away. Keep words and anything important a few millimetres inside the edge.

The designer checks for you. When something is too close, the side panel warns you, for example: 1 item may be trimmed — check Your design. On Design the item is marked, with a Fix it button that pulls it back into the safe area. With more than one, Fix all does them all. You can also just make the item a little smaller.

Checking it before you order

Preview shows your notepad full-screen, as it will be printed. 3D mock-up shows the finished notepad as an object: drag to spin it, scroll to zoom, and 📷 Save image to keep a picture. Neither changes anything.

Saving and coming back later

Save keeps your design under a name you choose. You need an account for this; if you are not signed in, the designer offers Register or log in, and it only takes a minute.

To open it again later: Menu → Open a saved design.

Approving your proof and ordering

  1. Press Review & check out (Finalise on a phone).
  2. The proof shows every design in your order side by side, with the total.
  3. Read every word. Spelling, layout and pictures are your responsibility once you approve.
  4. Tick the box to say you have read and agree, then press Finalize & Add to Cart.

Approving is final. We print exactly what the proof shows, so a mistake in an approved proof cannot be refunded. If anything is wrong, go back and fix it first.

At checkout you tick once more to confirm you have checked the spelling and layout, then pay securely through Payfast.

Until your set has 4 designs, the finish button reads N of 4 designs and stays grey. Saving a design on its own (Save) keeps the one on the canvas, not the whole set.

After you order

  • We start making your order once you have approved your proof and paid. How long it takes, and how it reaches you explains production times, Rush production, courier delivery and lockers.
  • Collecting from our Wilro Park collection point is free. We email you when your order is ready to collect.
  • Want to send us your own finished artwork instead? Choose Email us your artwork later where it is offered, or send us an enquiry.