Skip to content

Building a Layout

Click the LAYOUT BUILDER tab to reveal the layout builder.

Layout builder with empty layout
Layout builder with empty layout

The layout builder will look very similar to the template builder.

  • Templates and layouts both can use a starter value
  • Templates and layouts both can be built with AI prompts
  • Templates and layouts both are saved independently, from their own cards

Layouts and Layout Elements

A layout controls what appears on the label and how it is laid out. Each layout is made up of a list of layout elements.

Like templates, layouts can be saved and reused later. Click Make a Copy on the layout card and name your copy Tutorial label

Layout elements are a list of elements that are all stacked on top of each other.

Examples of layout elements:

  • Images
  • Barcodes
  • Text
  • Tables
  • Boxes

The list of elements is called the layer stack. Elements later in the stack are drawn on top of earlier ones, and you can drag a layer by its grip to reorder it.

Let's start by adding a box to get a feel for how layout elements work. Click the + button at the top of the layer stack and choose Box to add it to our layout.

Layout with BOX element added
Layout with BOX element added

Some things to notice:

  1. A BOX card appears in the left pane, with some controls.
  2. Each label now has a box drawn around its border, with the same dimensions as the debug border.
  3. The layout config at the bottom shows the new layout element data as it is sent to the API

Layout Element Sizing

Set the box's X Start to 50% and X End to 100%, then set Y Start to 0% and Y End to 66%

Box with range adjustments applied
Box with range adjustments applied

You can also position elements by dragging them directly in the Position & Size preview above the layer stack. Drag the middle of an element to move it, or an edge to resize it. Typing exact percentages and dragging do the same thing.

  • An X range of 50%-100% means that only the right 50% of the printable area is used.
  • A Y range of 0%-66% means that only the top 2/3 of the printable area is used.

With these four values, you can make a layout element cover any rectangle.

Layout elements are not sized by a fixed distance like "1 inch", but by percentage of total printable width and height. This allows the layout to shrink and grow to fit the template. If you have a 3x1 template and decide it's too small, you can just switch over to a 4x2 template, and the layout will automatically grow to fill that space.

Adding Label Text

Let's add a text element at the bottom of our label.

  1. Click the + button at the top of the layer stack and choose Text
  2. Set Y Start to 67% and Y End to 100% to occupy the bottom 33% of the printable area.
  3. Leave X Start at 0% and X End at 100% to occupy the full width.
  4. Set Value template to 0123456789 (more on this later)

After the PDF regenerates, you should see the following:

Layout with text added
Layout with text added

"Textual" layout elements are used for displaying text on a label. There are two primary textual layout elements:

  • Text: used for displaying text as a wrapped paragraph
  • Table: used for displaying a table made up of rows/columns of cells

As with all other layout elements, textual elements are restricted to a sized rectangle container (controlled with X Start/X End and Y Start/Y End).

Styling Text

We haven't set a value for font size, so T3 is using the default font size of 6. This is too small, we'd like the font to be larger.

Set Font size to 36 and you should see the following:

Layout with font size applied to text
Layout with font size applied to text

The text is now overflowing its container. Read on to learn how to auto-resize text.

Textual elements have multiple settings to control text appearance:

  • Font family
  • Font size
  • Line spacing
  • Horizontal/vertical text alignment
  • Text resize strategy

Auto-resizing text

To fix the text from overflowing, change the Resize Strategy to Shrink Text.

You should now see the text has been shrunk to fit inside its container:

Layout with shrink strategy applied to text
Layout with shrink strategy applied to text

When generating a series of labels, the text content between labels will differ, but you may not want it to overflow its container.

Textual elements allow you to specify a resize strategy, which selects a strategy to be deployed when T3 detects text overflows its container.

  • Allow Overflow: text will overflow its container with no intervention
  • Shrink Text: T3 will progressively reduce font size until the text fits within its container, or until a minimum font size is reached
  • Truncate Text: T3 will progressively remove letters from the end of the text and append an ellipsis (...) until the text fits within its container, or until a minimum text length is reached

Note: if text does not overflow its container, T3 will leave it alone.

Next Steps