A thousand tickets,
each one different
Variable data printing is a design with holes in it and a table to fill them from. Every page comes out of the same template, so a thousand of them weigh what one does — and the text stays text, the barcodes stay vector, and the whole run is one PDF a printer can put straight on the press. Free, in full. No sign-up.
- Free, no account.
- Every run is free, whatever its length — no sign-up, no licence, and nothing charged by the record.
- Nothing is uploaded.
- Your design, your data and your fonts are read in the browser and never sent anywhere. A list of names is not something to hand to a website.
- Barcodes, twenty-five kinds.
- QR, Data Matrix, Code 128, EAN, PDF417 and the rest, drawn as vector from the same engine as our barcode tool — and checked before they print.
- Numbering built in.
- A ticket book needs no spreadsheet at all: start, step, padding, prefix. The number is available to text and barcodes alike.
- It checks before it prints.
- The name too long for its box, the value that will not encode, the picture that was never added — found across the run, not on the page you happened to look at.
- One press-ready PDF.
- Text stays text, barcodes stay rectangles, the design is embedded once. Ready for imposition, or for the press as it is.
What it does
A design, a table, and the run that comes out
Three steps, and the middle one is usually already sitting in somebody's spreadsheet.
Your PDF, with holes in it
- A PDF from any program, or a JPG or PNG export
- Fields dragged onto the page and set in millimetres
- Text, barcode or picture, rotated and coloured as you like
Features
What it can put on a page
Enough for a ticket book, a badge run or fifty thousand mailers, and nothing that needs a server.
The design
What it starts from.
- Any PDF, at any page size, and any page of it
- A JPG or PNG export, wrapped as a page at 300 dpi
- Fields placed by dragging, then set exactly in millimetres
- Rotation, alignment and colour in RGB or CMYK
The data
What fills it in.
- CSV, TSV and text — comma, semicolon or tab, worked out on sight
- Cells pasted straight out of Excel or Google Sheets
- Quotes, commas inside cells and line breaks inside cells
- Copies of each row, for the jobs that need two of everything
The fields
What goes on the page.
- Text from any column, with the serial number as a column too
- Wrapped to the box, and shrunk to fit rather than cut off
- Barcodes in twenty-five symbologies, vector, quiet zone and all
- Pictures per record, matched by file name, fitted or filled
The checks
What it says before you print.
- A field pointing at a column the data has not got
- A value that will not encode in the symbology it was given
- Words that will not fit their box even shrunk
- A picture named in the data that was never added
How it works
Four steps to a merged PDF
The first three take a minute between them. The fourth is your browser doing the work.
Drop the design
A PDF, or an image of one. Its page size becomes the page size of the run.
Bring the data
A CSV, or a block of cells pasted from your spreadsheet. Or nothing at all, if you are numbering.
Place the fields
Drag a box onto the page and point it at a column. Check a record from the middle of the run, not the first.
Build the PDF
One file, a page per record. Impose it next door, or send it as it is.
Who it is for
Anything printed in a hundred versions of itself
The design is done. What is left is the part a spreadsheet should do.
Tickets and raffle books
Numbered, barcoded, and the same design throughout — the job variable-data printing was invented for.
Badges and passes
Names, roles and QR codes for an event, from the list the organiser already keeps.
Certificates and diplomas
A name, a date and a number on a design you only want to lay out once.
Vouchers and loyalty cards
Unique codes per copy, in whichever symbology the till reads.
Labels and asset tags
Inventory tags, cable labels and shelf edges, straight from the register.
Cards and mailers
Business cards for a whole office, or a mailing where every piece carries its own picture.
FAQ
Good to know
Is it really free?
Yes. Any number of records, any number of runs, no account and no watermark. Most variable-data tools charge by the record; this one does not charge at all.
Does my data get uploaded?
No. The design, the spreadsheet, the pictures and any font you add are read and merged in your browser, and nothing is sent to a server. That matters more here than anywhere else on this site: a list of names and addresses is not something to hand over to a website in exchange for a PDF.
What file do I bring the data in?
A CSV or a tab-separated file, however your spreadsheet writes it — comma, semicolon or tab, quotes and all, worked out on sight. Or skip the file: select the cells in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets and paste them straight into the panel.
Can it number tickets without a spreadsheet?
That is a mode of its own. Set a start, a step, how many digits to pad to and a prefix, say how many pages you want, and drop the number token into any field — text or barcode. The panel shows you the token and puts it in for you.
Which barcodes can it print?
Twenty-five symbologies: QR, Data Matrix, PDF417, Aztec, Code 128, GS1-128, Code 39, Code 93, EAN-13 and EAN-8, UPC-A and UPC-E, ITF, ITF-14, Codabar, the GS1 DataBar family and a few more. All drawn as vector, from the same engine as our barcode tool, and every value checked before the run is built.
How big does the PDF get?
Far smaller than you would expect. The design is embedded once and every page draws that one object, so a thousand tickets from a 2 MB design come to a couple of megabytes rather than two gigabytes.
Can I use my own font?
Yes — add the file and it is embedded, subsetted, in the finished PDF. It is never uploaded and never stored, the same rule our type tool follows: a licensed font is your property, not ours to hold.
Does the text keep to its box?
Set a field to shrink and long values step down until they fit, to a quarter of the size at most. Anything that still will not fit is reported before the run is built, with the record it was found on — that is the check worth running on every job.
Can I get separate files, one per record?
Not yet — the run comes out as one PDF. If you need it split, our PDF splitter will cut it by page, and for printing several to a sheet, PDF Imposer takes the merged file as it is.
How many records can it handle?
A few thousand comfortably; it is your browser doing the work, and the pages are built one at a time with a progress count. Very long runs are better cut into batches — and if a run of a hundred thousand is normal for you, this is the point at which a production system pays for itself.
The design is done. The list already exists.
Put the two together in your browser and take away one PDF with every copy in it.