Export Options & Validation

Intermediate 10 min read By Chitmunk Team Updated

Overview

Every export is a different way of getting cards onto a table: yours, a friend's, or a print shop's. The Export page has one row for each job: Print at home, TheGameCrafter, Print-shop PDF, Play online, and Card images. A line at the top tells you what is in your game (decks, cards, and prints) and how many things there are to check before printing. Every plan, starting with Common ($2.99 a month), exports at 300 DPI for professional print shops. This guide walks through each row and what to fix before you print.

A closed More exports list holds the cutting guide for your manufacturer, the Editable PDF (Beta), SVG, the sell sheet, all project images, and Save project to file. After you export, a Last time line remembers what you did and offers an Again button.

Tip: Open "things to check before printing" before every final export. Catching problems early is much faster than re-uploading a corrected batch to your print service.

Card Images (PNG / JPEG / WebP)

Card images renders each card face and packages the files into a ZIP, one image per card.

On every plan, including Common ($2.99/mo or $24.99/yr), all three formats render at print resolution, 300 DPI equivalent at the card's physical dimensions (e.g., a standard poker card at 750 × 1050 px). That is sharp enough for professional print services as well as home printing.

Which Cards and Faces

Every export includes all of your decks. When an export asks you to choose, you control which cards and faces end up in the files.

Tip: Look at the small preview strip of sample cards in the window before you save. It shows colors, sides, and the file type before you commit to hundreds of files.

File Names

Files are named after your game, what you made, and the date, for example "Affinity - Print at home - 18 Oct.pdf". For card images, open More options in the export window to set your own File names pattern (the box starts with card_{{_index}}_{{_face}}). It also holds the quality slider. Use these variables to build organized, meaningful names:

For example, the pattern card_{{_index}}_{{Name}}_{{_face}} produces filenames like card_001_Fireball_front.png and card_001_Fireball_back.png. The file extension is added automatically.

Tip: Putting a column like {{Name}} or {{CardID}} in the file name makes it easy to match images back to your spreadsheet rows when uploading to a print service.

Print-Shop PDF

The Print-shop PDF is a multi-page PDF for professional printing services, with colors converted from screen format (RGB) to print format (CMYK) so what you see is closer to what comes off the press. There are no options to set: one press makes it, with cut lines, registration marks, and color bars, on the paper size you last used in Print at home (or the one your browser language suggests). It is included in every plan. With more than one deck you get one file per deck.

For a full walkthrough of the extra edge, safe area, and print preparation, see the Print-Ready Checklist guide.

Print at Home

Print at home makes a PDF for your own printer and is included in every plan. This is the reference list; the Print at home guide walks through it step by step.

Which cards starts with every card in every deck. Choose Change to pick a range of cards, or one deck at a time when your game has two or more. If your spreadsheet has a column named Copies, Qty, Quantity, or Count, each card prints that many times (0 skips it, blank means 1). After your first print, you can print only the cards that changed since then.

Adjust shows your current choices on one line. Open it for three groups:

Your choices are remembered on this browser. Print at Actual size (100%).

Tip: Print at home is a fast way to share a physical prototype with playtesters before you commit to a print run. It is not meant for professional printing services; use the Print-shop PDF for that.

Play Online (Tabletop Simulator and More)

Choose Play online and pick Tabletop Simulator, Screentop.gg, or Tabletopia. For Tabletop Simulator, Chitmunk makes an image sheet in TTS's standard deck format: a 10-column grid where each cell holds one card face. It is included in every plan.

When it is done, the screen shows the Width, Height, and Number you type into Tabletop Simulator's Custom Deck window. Set the face URL to your image sheet and the back URL to the same image. TTS reads the last cell as the shared card back automatically.

Art Brief for Your Artist

If your game has placeholder art (pictures made with AI, waiting to be replaced), an Art brief for your artist row appears. It makes a PDF that lists every card that still needs art, so you can hand it to an illustrator.

Checking Your Cards (Proof)

Open Proof from the "things to check before printing" line on the Export page, or any time while you design, and always before a final export. It scans every element on every card face and reports issues in three severity levels:

Proof checks for the following conditions:

Each validation issue that references a specific element includes a Go to button. Clicking it switches to the correct face and selects the element on the canvas, so you can see exactly what needs fixing without hunting for it manually.

Tip: Proof checks the entire project, not just the card you are looking at. Run it on the whole game before your final export.

Service & Platform Presets

The Designing for picker at the top of the card size chooser (Card size in the game menu) sets the target service for your project. It changes which sizes are suggested and the default settings for that service, and never locks the project.

Print services:

Digital platforms:

Each preset adjusts the extra edge, the safe area, the recommended export format, and the resolution. You can still override any individual setting afterward.

Custom Dimensions

If you are designing for a non-standard card size that is not covered by Chitmunk's 200+ built-in component types, use the Custom size option at the bottom of the card size chooser. Set a width and height in inches, from 0.25" up to 54".

Tips

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