Printing greeting cards at home
You don’t need a fancy printer or a card-design app to make a great printed greeting card. A consumer inkjet, a stack of cardstock, and a ruler will get you most of the way. This guide covers paper, sizes, layout, and the small details that make a printed card feel intentional rather than improvised.
Paper
The single biggest upgrade you can make is the paper. Standard 24 lb printer paper is too floppy for a card — it bends in the envelope and feels disposable in the hand. The sweet spot is 80–110 lb cardstock (about 216–298 gsm). Heavier than that and your home printer may struggle to feed it; lighter than that and the card loses its presence.
- Smooth white cardstock — a safe default; ink looks crisp.
- Cream or natural cardstock — a warmer feel; pairs well with serif typefaces.
- Linen-finish cardstock — subtle texture; reads as “stationery” rather than “printout.”
- Recycled cardstock with flecks — gives a handcrafted, organic feel.
Avoid coated photo paper for greeting cards — it doesn’t fold cleanly and writing on it with a pen tends to smudge.
Sizes
Three common card sizes work well for printable verses:
- A2 folded (4.25×5.5″) — the most common North American greeting card size. Fits standard A2 envelopes available at any craft store. Print on a half-sheet of letter (8.5×11″) and fold in half.
- A6 folded (4.1×5.8″) — the European standard. Print on A4 and fold in half.
- Half-letter flat (5.5×8.5″) — a flat card, no fold. Ideal for sympathy cards and quieter occasions where a fold feels too cheerful.
Layout
For a folded card, set up your document as landscape orientation, divided into two equal halves. The right half (when the page is unfolded) becomes the front; the left half becomes the back. Print, then fold along the centre. The verse goes on the inside — you’ll need to flip the page over and re-feed it through the printer to print on the inside.
Most word processors (Pages, Word, Google Docs) and free design tools (Canva’s free tier, Figma) handle this fine. If you want a quick template, search “A2 folded card template” in any of those tools and you’ll get a usable starting point.
Typography
For the verse itself, a quiet serif typeface (Garamond, Caslon, Cormorant, Iowan Old Style) ages well and feels card-appropriate. For the front of the card, you can play more — a hand-lettered display font for the occasion name (“Happy Birthday,” “With Sympathy”) sets the tone before the recipient reads a word. Keep the verse to a single column and a font size that fills the card without crowding it — usually 11–14 pt depending on the verse length.
Ink
Black ink is rarely a mistake. If you’re using colour, two notes: matte cardstock soaks up colour and may print darker than you expect, and inkjet ink can take a few hours to fully dry on heavier paper — let cards rest before folding to avoid smudging.
Envelopes
Buy envelopes before you print your cards, not after. Envelope sizes are slightly larger than the card sizes that fit them — an “A2 envelope” is 4.375×5.75″, designed to hold an A2 card with a small margin. If you cut your own cards, measure your envelopes first.
Adding a personal note
Once the card is printed, write a personal sentence by hand under the verse. The handwriting is the warmest part of the card — do not skip it. Use a fountain pen or a quality rollerball; ballpoint pens are fine but feel less considered. Sign with the name the recipient calls you.
Common problems
Cards jamming in the printer. Try one card at a time, feed from the manual tray if your printer has one, and make sure your printer driver is set to a heavier paper weight so it slows down the feed mechanism.
Misaligned fold. Score the centre with the back of a butter knife against a ruler before folding. The crease will land exactly where you want it.
Verse runs off the page. Reduce the font size by a single point and add a hairline of margin on each side. Most CardVerse verses fit comfortably in 11–13 pt on a folded A2 card.