Applies to Cmsmart Product Designer (NBDesigner) 2.17.x · Updated October 2026. Covers the Custom Dimension print option, order-level pricing and the print-ready PDF that now matches the size a buyer typed in, not the product template.

In short

  • Sell one poster, banner, sign or label listing in any width and height a buyer asks for, instead of a fixed size chart, and stop hand-quoting off-catalog orders.
  • Cmsmart Product Designer's Custom Dimension field prices the order from a size-based matrix in the browser, then the Cmsmart Cloud renderer builds a print-ready PDF at that exact size.
  • Setup takes a product, a printing option with a Custom Dimension field, a price matrix and your output settings — no code, and Cmsmart can extend it with custom pricing and production rules.

What does selling only fixed sizes really cost a print shop?

A size chart limited to a handful of SKUs pushes every off-catalog request back to a human: a staff member has to quote it, build the print file by hand, and hope the customer does not change their mind. Cmsmart Product Designer removes that step by pricing and rendering any size the buyer types in.

WooCommerce now accounts for 33.4% of tracked ecommerce sites (StoreLeads, Aug 2025), and a large share of them are exactly the print shops, sign makers and POD sellers who run into the same catalog problem. The global large-format printer market alone reached $9.82 billion in 2025, most of it sold in sizes that do not fit a short dropdown list. Print shops and sign makers that only sell fixed sizes run into the same five problems on repeat:

  • Missed orders. A buyer who needs a size you do not list usually leaves rather than emails you, so you never see the lost sale in your analytics.
  • Manual quoting. Every "can you do this in 42x60?" message takes a staff member away from production to measure, price and reply.
  • Size-mismatched print files. A print file built from the product template, not the order, can leave margins wrong or artwork off-center once it is scaled to the real sheet.
  • Reprints. A size error caught at the press, not at checkout, costs the material, the ink and the slot in today's run.
  • A growing variant list. Adding every common size as its own product or variation turns a five-product catalog into fifty, each one needing its own stock, pricing and images to maintain.
Custom size printing software for WooCommerce: poster product page with a print options form and Start and upload design button
A single poster product listed at one price — many print shops run their whole size range through pages like this one.

Put a number on just the quoting step: if your team answers 10 off-catalog size requests a week, at 15 minutes each to measure, price by hand and reply, that is roughly 2.5 hours of staff time every week — before the order is even confirmed. Multiply that by your own hourly staff cost to see what manual quoting is costing your shop today.

What would it look like if a buyer could just type in a size and pay?

Cmsmart Product Designer turns "what size do you need?" into a field on the product page: the buyer enters their own width and height, the price recalculates from your matrix, and checkout, order tracking and the print-ready file all carry that exact size through to production.

Example scenario. A sign shop owner is asleep. A customer opens the banner product page at 10pm, types 34 inches by 50 inches into the size field, watches the price update from the shop's own price-per-square-foot matrix, uploads their logo, and pays. By morning, the order is sitting in Orders with "In production" status, and the print-ready PDF behind it is already sized to 34x50, not the 24x36 template. No email was exchanged, and the shop lost no sleep over a quote.

That is the shift: instead of a size chart that caps what you can sell, the product page becomes a quoting counter that never clocks out. Talk to an ecommerce expert if you want to see what this would look like on your own catalog.

How does Cmsmart's product designer handle custom-size orders?

Cmsmart Product Designer combines a Custom Dimension print-option field, a price matrix, the in-browser designer and the Cmsmart Cloud renderer, so a size a buyer types in flows all the way from the product page to a print-ready PDF without anyone re-keying it.

Four building blocks, all in the plugin today, make this work:

  • Custom Dimension field (Printing Options). You add it to any product's print options alongside the other online-design fields (Size, DPI, Area Design Shape, Orientation and more), with your own minimum and maximum limits.
  • Price matrix. The field is priced from a table you control, so a larger custom size costs more automatically — no per-order manual pricing.
  • Online designer canvas. The design area resizes to the dimensions the buyer entered, so text and artwork stay proportioned to the real print size, not a fixed mockup.
  • Cmsmart Cloud render. On Process, at checkout and again at the order screen, the cloud renderer, the server renderer and Create PDF now all read the same page geometry — including a custom size — so the print-ready PDF matches the order instead of the product template.
Cmsmart Printing Options editor showing the Custom dimension field type among the online design fields
The Custom Dimension field sits with Size, DPI and Area Design Shape under Online design fields in the Printing Options editor.
Cmsmart Printing Options list showing separate option sets for business cards, T-shirts, stickers and more
Each product or category gets its own printing-option set, so a sign product's size rules never touch your T-shirt pricing.

Cmsmart insight: keep Custom Dimension and your fixed-size variants on separate printing-option sets. Mixing them on one product usually confuses the price matrix, because a quantity-break table tuned for "S/M/L" does not scale cleanly to an open width-by-height range.

StepFixed size chart (manual)Cmsmart custom dimension
Pricing an off-catalog sizeStaff measures and quotes by email or phonePrice matrix recalculates in the browser as the buyer types
Building the print fileSomeone rebuilds the template to the new size by handCmsmart Cloud renders the print-ready PDF at the order's exact size
Order recordSize lives in an email thread or a sticky noteSize is stored on the order and shown in the order detail
Catalog sizeGrows a new SKU for every common sizeOne product covers the whole size range

What's the business value of pricing by exact dimensions?

Custom-size pricing turns unquoted, one-off requests into orders your storefront can close on its own: Cmsmart Product Designer prices the order from your own matrix and renders a print-ready PDF sized to match, so you win sales you used to quote by hand and cut the reprint risk from a file sized to the wrong template.

BenefitHow it shows up in your businessKPI to track
Fewer manual quotesStaff spend less time pricing one-off size requests by handOff-catalog quote requests per week
Fewer reprintsPrint files match the ordered size instead of a template defaultReprint rate tied to size mismatches
Wider order range from one listingOne product serves small and large custom orders without new SKUsAverage order value on custom-size products
Faster checkout for the buyerPrice appears instantly instead of after an email exchangeCart abandonment on custom-size products
Price breakdown on a WooCommerce product page showing cutting option, DPI and size feeding into a final price and quantity price table
The buyer sees exactly how each option, including size, adds up to the final price — with quantity-break pricing shown automatically.

ROI worksheet (use your own numbers):

  • Staff time saved = off-catalog requests per week × minutes to quote by hand × your hourly staff cost
  • Reprint cost avoided = custom-size orders per month × your current size-mismatch reprint rate × cost per reprint (material + ink + press slot)
  • Revenue opportunity = size requests you currently turn away per month × your average order value on that product

How do you set up custom size printing software for WooCommerce?

You set up custom-size pricing in Cmsmart Product Designer by adding a Custom Dimension field to a product's printing options, attaching a price matrix, checking your DPI and output settings, then confirming on a test order that the print-ready PDF matches the exact size the buyer typed in.

  1. Confirm Cmsmart Product Designer (NBDesigner) is active and on 2.17.x or later on Plugins — the print-ready PDF fix for custom sizes shipped in 2.17.0.
  2. Open the product in Product Manager and confirm it has a design area and is enabled for online design.
  3. Go to Printing Options, add a new option set (or edit an existing one) and apply it to the product.
  4. Add the Custom Dimension field from Online design fields, and set your minimum and maximum width and height. (For the field-by-field settings and where each value displays to the buyer, see our Custom Dimension configuration guide.)
  5. Build the price matrix for the field so a larger custom size prices higher automatically, and add any quantity-break discounts.
  6. In Settings > Upload design, check the minimum DPI for customer uploads — a size typed in much larger than the source artwork is the most common quality complaint on custom-size orders. (Background on the trade-off: how DPI affects print quality.)
  7. In Settings > Output, confirm PDF export and the ICC/CMYK profile match what your press expects.
  8. Test the buyer flow yourself: open the product, enter a custom size, confirm the price updates, then use Start design and Process to reach "Your artwork."
  9. Place a test order and open it from Cmsmart > Orders to see the production timeline and line item.
  10. On the order's design detail, open Create PDF and check that Product size (width and height) matches what the buyer entered, then use Regenerate print-ready PDF if you changed anything after the order was placed.
  11. Approve the artwork from the Customer Design box on the order screen before it goes to press — once approved, 2.17 locks the design on the server so a stray edit cannot change the file after sign-off.
Cmsmart Orders dashboard listing print and design orders with status, totals and production counts
Every order, custom size or not, lands on the same Orders board with its production status.
Create PDF screen on an order showing print-ready PDF status and the product size in millimeters used for the render
Create PDF shows the exact product size used for the render — this is what the 2.17 fix keeps in sync with the order.
Video thumbnail: How to create different sizes for your online design in NBDesigner
Video: How to Create Different Sizes For Your Online Design (Cmsmart on YouTube)

How can Cmsmart build on custom sizing for your shop?

Beyond the Custom Dimension field itself, Cmsmart builds the pricing, nesting and production logic that turns custom sizing into a fit for your specific material, press and workflow: material-aware price matrices, cutting optimization, ERP sync and approval flows, delivered as custom development on top of the plugin you already run.

Custom Dimension gives you the field, the matrix and the matching PDF. What most large-format, sign and POD businesses need next is logic specific to their materials and press — and that is custom development, not a core setting:

  • Material-aware pricing. Business reason: a vinyl banner and a foam board sign do not scale the same way per square foot, and a flat matrix under- or over-charges one of them. Cmsmart builds pricing rules keyed to material, minimum charge and waste allowance.
  • Cutting and nesting optimization. Business reason: large-format rolls waste material when each custom size is cut independently. Cmsmart builds layout logic that nests multiple custom-size orders onto one sheet or roll run.
  • ERP/MIS and press integration. Business reason: a custom size still has to reach your production scheduling without re-keying. Cmsmart connects order data, including the exact size and print-ready file, to your MIS or ERP.
  • B2B approval flows for recurring custom orders. Business reason: agencies and franchises reordering the same custom sizes need a company account, not a guest checkout. Cmsmart builds approval and reorder flows on top of the designer.
  • Apparel and DTF transfer sizing. Business reason: print-on-demand and DTF transfer suppliers, a market worth $10.8 billion globally in 2025, price by sheet size the same way a sign shop prices by square foot. Cmsmart extends Custom Dimension and AI preflight to apparel-transfer workflows as a tailored build.

Every custom-development engagement follows the same delivery model: discovery, solution design, build sprints, QA, launch and ongoing support — see our product designer customization service or how we run projects on Cmsmart ecommerce projects.

Get a custom sizing & pricing quote

Why work with Cmsmart on your print storefront?

Cmsmart has built and supported WooCommerce print-and-design storefronts since 2012 as a Netbase JSC division, shipping features like Custom Dimension and the matching print-ready PDF into the same plugin thousands of live stores already run, backed by a published project history and customer rating.

Cmsmart has delivered 6,300+ client projects and 4,600+ projects since 2012, with 1,800+ live stores running today across 80+ countries, and holds a 4.2 rating from 404 Trustpilot reviews. A recent five-star Trustpilot review from a web developer who has run NB Designer for three years put it this way: "The designer works exceptionally well across all devices and allows us to create the exact customisations required to perfectly fit our products and our business model." See the full feature set on the Cmsmart Product Designer page, or our web-to-print solutions hub for the wider storefront picture.

Frequently asked questions

Is Custom Dimension a core feature of Cmsmart Product Designer, or custom work?

It is a core field type in Printing Options today, available on 2.17.x. Pricing matrices, per-material rules and nesting logic on top of it are custom development.

How does pricing work when a buyer types their own width and height?

You attach a price matrix to the Custom Dimension field, so the price recalculates in the browser as the buyer adjusts the size, the same way other print options (cutting, DPI, binding) feed into the final price.

Will the print-ready PDF actually match the size the customer ordered?

Yes, since the 2.17.0 fix to ticket #37389: the cloud renderer, the server renderer, the live preview and the order screen's Create PDF all read the same page geometry, including a custom size, instead of the product template's default.

Can Cmsmart add per-material pricing or nesting for large-format rolls?

Yes, as custom development on top of the plugin — see the custom development section above for what that typically involves.

Does custom-size pricing work for apparel or DTF transfer sheets, not just signs and posters?

The same Custom Dimension field and price matrix apply; print-on-demand and DTF transfer suppliers usually need the apparel-specific pricing and preflight rules built as a tailored extension, since every shop sizes transfers differently.

Do I need a developer to turn this on?

No. Adding the field, the matrix and the output settings is store-owner-level configuration inside wp-admin; a developer is only needed for the custom pricing and production logic described above.

Written by

Cmsmart Product Designer Plugin Engineer

Builds and supports the Cmsmart Product Designer (NBDesigner) for WooCommerce.

  • NBDesigner
  • WooCommerce
  • Product customizer
  • Release notes
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