Gift Voucher Maker

How to make a printable gift voucher

1. Pick Gift voucher, then type who it is for, what it entitles them to, and who it is from. “Valid until” and a voucher number are optional; leave the boxes empty and they disappear.
2. Choose a design. Christmas, Birthday, Love, Elegant, Kids, Minimal, or Ink-saving: black lines only, with no coloured areas, for a printer that is low on colour.
3. Choose how many per sheet. One fills a landscape page. Two or three are copies with cut lines; if the number ends in digits it counts up (001, 002, 003), so you can give the same treat three times.
4. Download the PDF and print it at actual size. The PNG is the same sheet at 300 dpi, for printing from a phone or sending in a message.

Questions

What should I write on a homemade gift voucher?

Say exactly what the person gets, so there is nothing to negotiate later: “a three-course dinner I cook, you choose the menu” works better than “a dinner”. A money voucher reads well as “£50 towards…” plus the thing it is for. Add a “valid until” date a year or so ahead if you want it used, and leave it off if it should never expire. The voucher number is for fun or for your own records; it matters most when you print several copies.

What do I write in a love coupon?

The best love coupons are small, specific and easy to say yes to: “breakfast in bed, made by me”, “a back massage, 20 minutes, no rushing”, “you win one argument”, “one evening with both our phones off”. Mix everyday favours with one or two bigger ones (a date night you plan from start to finish), and add a coupon only the two of you would understand. The Love set has 24 ideas to start from; tap any idea under the list to add it, and edit every line freely. For a husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend the same rules apply: write promises you will happily keep, not chores in disguise.

What do I put in a Christmas coupon book?

Promises that belong to the season and that you can actually keep between Christmas Eve and New Year: a job taken off someone’s list, a treat, or time together. For a husband, wife or partner the ones that land are the jobs nobody wants, offered up front: “I wrap all your presents this year”, “I write and post all the Christmas cards”, “I take the tree down and hoover up every needle”, “I drive to every Christmas visit so you can have a drink”. For a mum or dad, take over a piece of the big day: “I cook Boxing Day dinner”, “I peel every potato and sprout”, “I lay the table”, “I take every decoration down in January”. Twelve coupons is a good size: enough to feel like a real present, few enough that each one gets used. Pick Christmas under Starter coupons, then Kids, Partner or Mum or Dad: each group has 18 of our own ideas, 12 go straight into the book and the other 6 wait under the list to swap in. The cover title becomes “Christmas Coupons” (type over it if you like) and, unless you have already chosen a design, the book switches to Holly and stars; Christmas B&W is the same holly and stars as black outlines, for a printer low on colour ink.

Christmas coupons for kids: what works?

Children value permission and attention more than things, so the best Christmas coupons for kids are small rule-bends and time with you: “stay up 30 minutes late on Christmas Eve”, “pick the Christmas film we all watch”, “open one present on Christmas Eve”, “put the star on top of the tree”, “pyjamas all day on Boxing Day”. Things you make together work well too: Christmas biscuits to decorate, a gingerbread house to build and then eat, paper snowflakes for the windows. Keep the wording short, because the coupon is read by the child, and decide before you hand the book over which ones are any-time and which are for a set day (“stay up late” only works on the night it names). Under-sevens do best with three or four coupons at a time rather than the whole book; older children like being in charge of when to tear one out. Leave a couple of blank coupons for their own suggestions: a child who writes “a snowball fight with Dad” will hold you to it.

How do I print and staple a coupon book?

Print every page one-sided at 100%. Cut along the grey dashed lines only; the dotted line on each piece is the tear-off line, not a cut. Stack the pieces in order: the cover first (top-left of sheet 1), then the coupons left to right and top to bottom across sheet 1, then sheet 2, and so on. Each coupon has its number in the strip on its left, so you can check the order. Line up the left edges and put two staples through the strip, on the two short marks about 7 mm in from the edge, which any desk stapler reaches. With 12 coupons and 6 per sheet that is 3 sheets: the cover, 12 coupons and 5 blank coupons to write by hand or leave out.

How many coupons fit, and what size are they?

A book holds 6 to 24 coupons plus the cover. Six per sheet gives coupons of about 14 × 6.5 cm on A4 (13.2 × 6.7 cm on US Letter); four per sheet gives about 14 × 9.7 cm (13.2 × 10 cm). The left 1.5 cm of each is the staple strip. A list shorter than six is made up to six with blank coupons, and any lines after the 24th are left out.

What paper should I use?

Plain 80 g/m² paper works, but 160 to 250 g/m² card (about 60 to 90 lb cover) makes a voucher feel like a gift and a coupon book that lasts. Most home printers feed card one sheet at a time from the rear or manual slot. The 8 mm white edge keeps everything clear of the strip home printers cannot reach.

Can I edit the voucher in Word?

Yes. Press Download Word (.docx) and you get the voucher or coupon book as an editable Word table, so you can fix a spelling, change the wording or add a line after you have downloaded it. A single voucher is one table cell the voucher's own size (281 × 194 mm on landscape A4, 263 × 200 mm on Letter) with the title, “This voucher entitles … to”, what it is for, and one line with From, Valid until and the voucher number; two or three per sheet stack as rows with the numbers counting up. A coupon book starts with the cover cell, then one cell per coupon in the same order and at the same width as the PDF (140.5 mm on A4, 131.7 mm on Letter), two across, with grey cell borders as the cut lines and a 6 mm margin round the page, on A4 or Letter as you chose. It opens in Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer, Google Docs and Apple Pages. The design comes with it: each voucher, cover and coupon has its drawing (the holly and snowflakes, balloons and confetti, hearts, the gold double rule and corner flourishes, stars, the coupon's staple strip, the write-in lines of a blank coupon) as one picture behind its cell, painted by the same code as the PDF, and every line of your wording sits on top as ordinary text, placed at the height the PDF gives it. What still differs: the lettering is Georgia rather than the page's script face, so a long line can wrap where the PDF shrank it; a row can be a few millimetres shorter than in the PDF, so the picture is squeezed by the same few per cent; and to change the design you change it here and download again. If you change nothing, the PDF prints a little crisper; use Word when you want to edit.

Can I use it for my business or shop?

No. This maker is for personal gifts between people. It has no store name, terms and conditions, redemption tracking or unique codes, all of which a business gift certificate needs, and you should not present a voucher made here as one.

Is it free?

Yes. No sign-up, no watermark and no paid version. Everything is made in your browser, so making another costs nothing.