Blank Product Creation Guide

Blank Product Creation Guide


Kornitˣ - Blank Product Creation Guide   


Prepared by Cobi Martin 

Product Creation Specialist for Kornitˣ

 

  

  

 

 

Introduction 

The following document has been written to instruct our customers on how to create Blank Products within the Kornitˣ Platform.  

The guide outlines the steps necessary to successfully create blank products in the Kornitˣ platform that can be used  

How to access Categories 

A Blank product represents an available Wholesale SKU (e.g.: Gildan 64000, Bella & Canvas 3001, etc) that has been configured to produce a printed output recognised by a Kornit printer.  

Each Blank features a ‘Print area’ for each position on the garment that is available for decoration e.g.: Front, Back, Left Sleeve, Right Sleeve, Neck Tag.  


All blanks for a customer should be created and found available within their own blank products category.

NotesImportant note: Please ensure that you choose the correct Blank for your intended decoration method e.g.: DTG (Standard) / XDI.  
 

Accessing Categories 

Product Categories are an essential element for managing products and every new product created must be placed within a category. 

To view available categories, head to the "Settings" cog wheel in the bottom left corner of the Kornitˣ Platform. Click on the "Categories" option which is shown in the below screenshot.  


Some categories you may have "read" access to whilst others have "read/write" access to, this access is determined by your user permissions. For example, all blank product categories will be read access while all virtual products created will be read & write access.  


Creating Categories

Product categories can be created by individual users. To do so simply head to your categories and you will see the below list view.

When hovering over the categories, you will see the following buttons - "+ Subcategory" and the trash icon. You can create subcategories by selecting the first button and you can delete categories with the trash icon.
Notes
Please note, a subcategory must not contain any products, otherwise you will not be able to delete them.

Upon pressing the subcategory option the following screen will load.

You must enter a name for your new subcategory as shown below in the basic details.

Once you have set the name, simply click onto the "Save" button highlighted below.

The category will then appear in your list as a subcategory of your main category.


Alert
We advise making Kornitˣ aware when categories have been created by one user, as all other users will need to have the same access.

What is a Blank Product? 

A “Blank” is a Fulfiller-approved base product that includes live preview imagery and is configured to match a specific print specification for generating print-ready artwork. 

The term 'Blank' stems from how the Products can be used as a template that the fulfiller can add artwork to whilst still conforming to their print specification. This process creates Virtual Products that can be published and sold online, with the order automatically routed to the associated Fulfiller.  


As a pre-requisite to creating any blank products, you must have the following:
  1. Product SKU
  2. Product aspect imagery including any colours & aspects (Front, Back, Neck, etc)
  3. The print size information in millimetres
Idea

Top Tip: In this document, we will be creating T-Shirt samples. You can also use the values in the screenshots to easily follow the steps and create your Blank Products.  


Creating Aspects

The principle purpose of an Aspect is to provide a preview image of the product on-screen that customers will interact with. There are certain rules to follow when making your aspect images, outlined below.

      Rule #1 - Aspect images should be orthographic.
      Rule #2 - Aspect images should be JPEG or PNG format.
      Rule #3 - Aspect images should be set at 800 by 800 pixels with a resolution of 72 DPI.
      Rule #4 - Aspect images must always be square.
      Rule #5 - Aspect images must be less than 1mb in size.
      Rule #6 - Aspect images should maximise the available space in the image document.

Below is some example aspect images that adhere to these rules for a standard T-Shirt blank. 





Creating a New Product 
Access the Catalog > Product Manager menu using your login credentials here - Product Manager >>

Click '+ New Product'. 
 

From the pop-up Creation Menu, Click 'Blank' 

The main option for to be using is 'Manual'  

 

From the Product Details Menu, specify the Fulfiller, Fulfiller SKU, Product Name, Category and Classification. These details are required for new products to be created on the system (this information can be changed at a later date if needed). 


Click 'Create Product' to confirm - this will take you directly to the new Blank Product for you to begin to configure. 




Adding your Preview specifications 

'Preview' allows you to determine how your product will display on screen by uploading suitable preview images.  

Alert

Critical: These image files are used for on screen preview purposes only, and should be formatted based on the following: 

  1. Square: Uploaded product preview images MUST be square. 
  2. Image Size: 800x800 pixels is the recommended guideline size for preview quality and performance reasons.
  3. Supported File Types: PNG or JPEG format. 
  4. File Size Limit: Upload limit is 1mb, but we recommend all images are less than 500kb.  
For more information and advice on optimising performance, see this article: 2D Product Optimisation | Load Speeds & Performance >> 


All preview-based images must be added to an 'Aspect'. 


Begin by clicking Preview > Aspects > + Aspect to add a new Aspect.  

  • Add your Aspect Name. Generally, Aspect Names are used to indicate the side of the product you intend to represent for the garments we are making we should use ‘Front' or 'Back'. In this example we are creating a T-Shirt, so we have used 'Front'.  
     

Notes

NOTE: A product can have one or multiple Aspects. e.g. a garment product might have an Aspect for the Front, Back, Left Sleeve, Right Sleeve, etc.  

  • Click to '+ Option'  

 



Info

NOTE: An Aspect option is the visual preview image of the product. Each Aspect can have one or multiple Aspect Options associated. (e.g. if creating a T-Shirt, you might want to offer a range of colours by adding multiple options and uploading the relevant coloured images.) 

  • Upload your product preview image to the 'Main Image' slot as shown below. As you can see the preview size has been updated from 0 by 0 pixels on the preview size in the previous screenshot to 800 by 800 pixels and that is due to the aspect image we used being set to 800 by 800 pixels. 



 

  • The Aspect Option properties can then be set, e.g. Option Name / Option SKU. This is because some products may have multiple Aspect Options to represent different colours / materials / finishes etc.  
     

These steps can be repeated for adding additional previews such as Back, Front Sleeve, or Right Sleeve. This is shown in the below example. 



 Adding your Print Areas 

The Print allows you to determine the size, layout, and volume of output files that the system will generate when an order is placed, as necessary for fulfilment purposes. 
 

For each required output file, a Print Area must be created on the product - this process allows you to set a specific output size (in mm) and position the area in relation to the products Preview. It is this process that connects the live preview and the artwork generation together. 

Alert

Important Note: Print Areas are used to determine the output print file size and highlight the available personalisation area on-screen in relation to the live preview. 

To create a Print Area:  

Click Print > Print Areas > + Print Area 


Within the Print Area setup, you can specify: 

    • Name – We recommend setting the same name as the aspects so “Front” or “Back”. 

    • Aspect - the product preview that the Print Area is to be associated with. In this example we want to set the Print Area on the 'Front' Aspect that we have just created. 

    • Print Size (in mm) - this determines the size of the artwork files that the system generates. In this example we are using standard Kornit Pallet of 396 x 498mm. 

    • Preview Size (in pixels) - this determines the size of the personalisation area in relation to the product preview image. You can set the pixel sizes using the input fields, or interactively within the preview. 

  •  

The goal here is to get a matching Aspect Ratio between the Print Size and Preview Size elements, thus connecting the preview to the artwork generation. The simplest way to do this is: 

    • Input your Print Size values in mm 

    • Copy the same values into the Preview Size fields. This will automatically give you a matching Ratio (note the size of the area in the interactive preview may be incorrect). 

    • Use the interactive tools to position and uniformly scale the on-screen Print area so that it 'fits' the product preview. 

Alert

Critical: The aspect ratio of the Print Size (in MM) and the aspect ratio of the Preview Size (in PX) both highlighted in the below screenshot should be set within the 0.05 tolerance threshold. 




With your blanks, there may be a need for adding additional print areas, such as "Front", “Left Chest” or “Right Chest”. An example of the "Back" which is set as 396 by 498 mm can be seen below.  

 

Adding Print Sizes

In order to set multiple sizes on your blank, simply head to the Print section and click onto the Print Sizes tab which will display the following shown below. 


To add print sizes simply click onto the "+ Print Size" button shown below. 
You will then see the below screen where you can set up the different sizes. We have clicked the button multiple times so we can set 5 different print sizes. 


You then simply need to enter the Size Description, SKU for the size, set the type to Multiplier and set the multiplier to "1.00" which will ensure the same print size remains. This has been shown in the below screenshot and must be saved. 


If you ever need to delete a print size, simply hover over and use the trash icon shown below. 

The product you have created now has print sizes. 

Variants

When you have a single product within platform that has variable options (such as Size and Colour for garment items) you will most likely want to receive a unique SKU to help determine which options have been added to the cart. For example, a shirt with 6 sizes & 3 colours will have 18 variants.

With KornitX we have two options for adding variants. You can either make these manually one by one via the product ID or import the variants via the variant import. With Platform you can easily manage the variants by editing and deleting them if required.

Variants can be set against many existing elements of product setup within platform, these have been outlined below.
  1. Pre-set Stock Product IDs 
  2. Pre-set Production Attributes 
  3. Aspect Options
  4. Attribute Options
  5. Product Print Sizes 
The above options have been shown in the below screenshot which is accessible when setting up product variants.


Notes
Important to note all of the above features can be set via our variants import

Setting Variants Manually

You can set up variants via platform where you can manually go into each item with valid attributes/aspects/print sizes and go into the variants tab found within the "General" menu and the "Variants" tab.  

InfoVariants can ONLY be added to products with either valid aspect options, attributes or print sizes.
Now within the variants section, before you set these up you are met with the "+ Variant" button.

Upon pressing this a variant will be created given you the following options which are specified below. 
  1. "Aspect Option 1 & 2" - Here you can select the colour variation of each product. We have a second option to set if their are multiple aspects to take into account such as a shirt with 2 different prints and multiple colours.
  2. "Print Size" - This allows for users to select from the dropdown the sizes of print, previously set it print sizes. 
  3. "SKU" - This is where the variant SKU is shown and is what the fulfiller should expect to see within their orders.
Below we can see the data we have set.


Once finished we simply need to press the "Save" option as shown below. 


Setting Variants via the import

Variants can also be set via our purpose built Variant import. To gather this information its best to first set one variant and run an export as shown below.  

To run the export head to the product manager view and select the following Export button

In this view you can select from the list, for this we want to pick variants which is highlighted. Once selected the data will be exported. 

We then have an export as shown below and we can fill in the information needed which must match what is set in the platform. We are using excel to show this data. 

Warning
Remove Variants Ref as this is not needed as we only need to use the variant ID header. 
Before we save the import, you need to set your data. In the below example we have added all the remaining product data we need for an import creating 18 variants. 

Once we have added all of the data we must save as a CSV UTF-8 as shown below. 

To import the data back into the system, please select the Import button highlighted below. 

The below menu will appear and we need to pick the variants option highlighted. 

When selecting the file the system will then process and as shown below.  

Now, going into the selected blank you will see the variants imported, like the below example. 

The Print Test facility offers a test environment for you to review your product setup, but more importantly, generate example output files to ensure the Print is correct vs the on-screen preview. 
Notes

Important Note: Print Test is accessible at any stage during the product configuration. We highly encourage frequent testing to minimise the likelihood of any issues. 

 

  • Print Test can be accessed from the Contextual Actions in the top right of the interface. The below is the correct button to press for this. 
     

 

Clicking it loads a pop-up window showing the product preview and configured functionality. 
 

  • In this example we have uploaded an image using the simple functionality options from the following optional step. 




Clicking 'Generate Artwork' will then produce a series of example output files in several formats that can be downloaded and compared vs product thumbnails to ensure accuracy between preview and output. 


Using what you have learned you can continue creating more Blank products to populate your product range on the system.  

 

 Adding Functionality - Optional Step

Functionality refers to the interactive tools available to the end user to customise the product within the live preview Smartlink. This might be Image Upload, Text, etc. Blank Products do not typically need any functionality, but it is good practice for a Fulfiller to add basic image functionality to aid print testing. 
Alert
Please note, this is just an optional step.

In this example we will configure an Image Area for the purposes of photo upload. 
 

  • To add an Image Area, click Functionality > Images > + Image Area   

This will bring up the Image Area setup screen, whereby you can specify: 
 

    • Name - if multiple Image Areas are configured this name will appear in the Smartlink, so make them relevant. 

    • Print Area - this allows you to specify the Print Area that the uploaded image will be applied to. 

    • Position - this determines the location and size of the area that the user can upload an image to. By default, these values will auto-populate when a Print Area is selected, meaning that any uploaded image will apply to the entire Print Area by default. This can be manually changed via the input fields or the interactive preview, if required.  

Creating a Thumbnail image - Optional Step

A product thumbnail provides an easy way to identify each blank product in Product Manager.  
Alert
Please note, this is just an optional step.

Whilst the system will automatically generate a thumbnail image based on the initial image uploaded, occasionally there will be need to replace this as the product evolves.  
To create or add a thumbnail, head to the "Assets" section in the "General" menu as shown below. 

The section will display the "Product Image".  


With this you can either upload a thumbnail you may already have. 

For standard DTG you can use the "eye" tool which will allow you to create a thumbnail based on the preview image. 

Click on the eye button and a popup will appear. Simply click Save to save a thumbnail of the preview that you see on screen.  The view buttons below the preview can be used to select a view other than the Front if necessary. 

Once saved you will receive a message stating that you have "Successfully Uploaded Asset". Click OK to return to the product. 


Still Need Help?  

You can access raise a ticket with our technical support teams using the buttons below.  

Raise a support ticket 

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