A box is made from one flat sheet. A dieline is the drawing of that sheet: where it gets cut, where it gets creased so it will fold, and where the glue goes. If you can read one, you can catch the errors that are expensive after printing and free before it.
The line types
| Line | Usually drawn as | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Cut | Solid | The knife goes through the board here. This is the outline of the blank. |
| Crease or score | Dashed | The board is pressed, not cut, so it folds cleanly along this line |
| Perforation | Dot-dash or a row of ticks | Partially cut so a person can tear it: a tear strip, a tamper lock, a dispensing window |
| Bleed | Outer boundary, outside the cut | Where artwork must extend to, typically about 1/8 inch beyond the cut line |
| Safety margin | Inner boundary, inside the cut | Keep text and logos inside this. Cutting has tolerance and copy near a cut line will eventually be trimmed. |
| Glue tab | A narrow panel, often shaded | Gets adhesive and ends up hidden. Never place artwork you want seen on it. |
Reading the flat as a three-dimensional object
The hardest part is orientation. On the flat, adjacent panels are side by side, but once folded some of them are upside down relative to each other, and one of them becomes the face nobody sees. So:
- Find the panel labels. A good dieline marks front, back, left, right, top and bottom. If it does not, ask for them.
- Check which side is printed. A dieline is usually drawn from the outside face. If you want inside printing, that is a second file, mirrored, and it should be called out explicitly.
- Check rotation panel by panel. Copy on a top flap often needs to be rotated 180 degrees on the flat so it reads correctly when the box is closed.
- Follow the tuck. On a tuck end carton the tuck flap and the dust flaps fold in a set order. If you do not know what a dust flap does, that is explained on what is a dust flap.
What to check before you approve the proof
- Every image and background colour runs fully into the bleed, with no white sliver at the edge.
- No text, logo or barcode sits outside the safety margin.
- No crease line runs through a barcode, a logo or a block of small text, because a fold through fine detail cracks the ink.
- Barcodes are the right orientation and have their quiet zone clear.
- Panel copy is the right way up for the finished box, not for the flat.
- Regulatory, ingredient and usage copy is on the panel you intended, at a legible size.
- Spot effects, foil and emboss are on separate layers, correctly registered.
How the dieline gets made
Design support is included, so you do not need to supply a dieline to get started. Send your internal dimension and the box style, or a photo of an existing box, and we will produce the dieline and lay your artwork on it. The die itself, which is the physical cutting tool made from that drawing, is included in the job. That is why a genuinely custom internal size costs no more to tool than a near-standard one, and why there is no reason to distort a box to fit a template someone else made.
Minimum order is 100 boxes and pricing starts from about $0.48 per unit at bulk volumes, confirmed on your written quote. We print in West Chicago in the US and Guangzhou in China, and turnaround is quoted per product in three lanes: rush (expedited production plus air freight), standard (air) and cost saver (sea), from about 7 business days plus 2 to 5 for delivery. A digital proof goes out before anything prints, every time.
If you also want to know what else appears on the document beside the drawing, what a packaging quote includes covers it.
Send your artwork or a rough sketch through the quote form and we will build the dieline, mark the bleed and safety, and send it back for you to check before anything is committed.
