Engraving

The Engraving feature allows you to offer engravable products that can be customized by your customers. It simulates how the design will look when engraved directly in the Customizer, providing a realistic preview for customers and automatically generating all the production files you need.
 

How it works

When you create a Printing Method, you enable the Engraving feature in the Effect section. You set an effect to simulate engraving on your product and the design gets that effect.

See this demo product

Zakeke provides you with pre-made effects that you can edit if you're not happy with the final result. In particular, an effect is composed of:

• Overlapping and opacity: this is where you choose the blend mode. Normal, Overlay and Multiply are the most common ones.
• Text color
• Automatic effect to auto-convert the images uploaded by the customer (greyscale, black and white, ...)

Please note

If you activate the 3D preview for a product with one of these effects, we suggest setting the Blend mode to Normal and Opacity to 100%.

Output files with Engraving enabled

When Engraving is enabled, Zakeke generates a set of production-ready files.
The output behavior follows two simple rules:

1. Standard print files (without the engraving effect) continue to be generated as usual: PDF, PNG, SVG, and DXF. See more here.

2. Engraving-ready files: additional files with the engraving effect applied are generated, identified by the __effect suffix in the filename.
    

Engraving-ready files

When Engraving is active, Zakeke generates additional engraving-ready production files in addition to the standard print-ready formats.

By default, all engraving-ready files are generated exactly as you see the design in the Customizer preview mode. However, you can choose to set different effect rules for your engraving-ready files than the ones used for the preview, from the Output tab when you configure the effect in the Printing Method.

Files generated

Zakeke produces engraving-ready versions of the standard files:

• PDF_effect
  Engraving version of the print-ready PDF

• SVG_effect
  Engraving version of the SVG file

• PNG_effect
  Engraving version of the PNG file

Regardless of settings for standard files in the Printing Method, Zakeke also generates three engraving-specific files:

• AI
  Adobe Illustrator vector file with engraving effect

• BMP
  Bitmap file for engraving machines

• PDF_effect_vector
  Vectorized PDF with engraving effect, optimized for production

  • In addition to the standard __effect output file, the __effect_vector.pdf is a vector version of the final output with the effects applied.

  • This file is generated by an image tracing algorithm applied to the rasterized _effect file, so the vector result may differ slightly from the original raster effect.

  • Limitations: The __effect_vector.pdf will not be created if:

    1. You have a dark-and-light effect plus an overlay color other than black or white, or

    2. You have any other effect plus an overlay with a color other than black.

In total, when Engraving is active, up to 11 production files can be generated.

#	Type	Filename example	Description	Notes
1	PDF	filename.pdf	Standard print-ready file
2	SVG	filename.svg	Standard vector file
3	PNG	filename.png	Standard raster file
4	DXF	filename.dxf	Standard CAD vector file	Raster elements are ignored in DXF outputs. These files include vector data only. If a design contains raster elements (e.g., photos), they will not appear in the final output. Enable AI Vectorizer to convert raster elements into vectors. DXF provides connected paths with slightly lower precision, while DXF HQ offers higher precision and smoother curves but paths split into segments. See details.
5	DXF HQ	filename__HQ.dxf	High-quality CAD vector file
6	PDF _effect	filename__effect.pdf	Engraving version of the PDF
7	SVG_effect	filename__effect.svg	Engraving version of the SVG
8	PNG_effect	filename__effect.png	Engraving version of the PNG
9	AI	filename__effect.ai	Illustrator vector file with engraving effect
10	BMP	filename__effect.bmp	Bitmap file for engraving machines
11	PDF _effect_vector	filename__effect_vector.pdf	Vectorized PDF with engraving effect	Created by tracing the rasterized effect into vectors. May differ slightly.

Key details

• PDF, SVG, and PNG files are produced in two versions: standard and _effect.

• DXF files don’t support raster data. They contain only vector elements.
  If you want raster elements (such as shadows or effects) to be included, enable AI Vectorizer so Zakeke converts them into vectors before exporting.

  Two versions of DXF are generated:

  • DXF
    This version provides connected paths (you can select the entire shape as one object), but the overall precision and curve quality are slightly lower.

  • DXF HQ
    This version provides higher precision and smoother curves, but the paths are split into separate segments. For example, if you select a rectangle, you’ll be able to select each side individually rather than the whole shape.

• AI, BMP, and PDF_effect_vector are always generated, regardless of your Printing Method settings.

• The PDF_effect_vector is created using an image-tracing algorithm and may look slightly different from the preview.