How to print gift messages from Shopify orders

Where Shopify keeps the gift message

It depends on where you ask for it.

• In the cart. Many themes can show a note box in the cart. What the shopper writes there is saved as the order’s note: one note for the whole order, however many gifts are in it.
• On the product page. A gift message field on the product page, added by your theme or an app, is saved with that item as a line item property. It shows under the item on the order page, so each gift in an order can have its own message and recipient.

If shoppers often send several gifts in one order, ask on the product page, so each card gets the right message.

Option 1: Copy it by hand

For a few orders a week, open each order, read the message and write or type it onto the card. It costs nothing, but it’s slow on busy days, and a misspelled name on a gift is hard to put right once the parcel has gone.

Option 2: Add it to your packing slip

Shopify’s packing slip template can print the message for free. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings, then Shipping and delivery, and open the packing slip template under Documents. In the template, order.note is the order’s note and line_item.properties holds the entries saved with each item. Properties whose names start with an underscore are an app’s own data, so leave those out. Then print packing slips from the order, or select several orders and print all their slips at once.

The catch: the message prints on the packing slip, in the slip’s layout and font. It’s easy to read, but it isn’t a card you’d tuck into a gift. Order printer apps work the same way, with templates you edit in HTML and Liquid.

Option 3: Print it on your own card with Noteable

Noteable prints each shopper’s gift message on your own card design, so the card in the box matches the rest of your brand. You set it up once, in three steps.

1. Upload your card and mark where the words go. Upload your card design as a PDF, up to 10 MB. Draw a box where the recipient’s name, the message and the sender go, and choose the font, color and alignment for each, from 27 font families, handwriting fonts included. Long messages wrap onto several lines and keep the shopper’s line breaks.
2. Add the Noteable Fields block to your product page. In the theme editor, add the block to your product template. Give the message a multi-line box and a character limit so it fits the card, and add an “Add a gift message” checkbox if only some shoppers want one. The entries are saved with the order as line item properties.
3. Print the cards when you pack. Open the order and choose More actions, then Noteable, to download its cards as one PDF per item, one merged PDF or a ZIP. On a busy day, select orders on the Orders page and choose Print, then Noteables, to print all their cards at once.

Turn on order tagging in Noteable’s settings, and each new order with entries gets the “Noteable” tag. Filter your orders by it and add the Unfulfilled filter to see the gift orders you still have to pack.

Noteable prints the entries its own block collects. Messages written in a cart note or in another app’s fields don’t appear on the card.

Tips for printing gift message cards

• Export your card from Canva, Word or your design app as a PDF at the size you print, such as A6 or 4×6 in.
• Preview the template with test values in Noteable, then print a test order on plain paper to check where the message sits.
• Print at actual size (100%), not “fit to page”, so the card comes out at the size you designed it.
• Use the field’s help text to tell shoppers where the message goes, such as “Printed inside the card”.