Before you print
Printing guide.
Everything on this site is made for a home printer and ordinary paper. These are the four settings that decide whether the result looks like a shop-bought decoration.
Last updated 2026-09-04
Print at 100%, never Fit to page
Every sheet is drawn at true size. Fit to page shrinks it by a few percent to clear the printer margin, and each flag comes out a slightly different width from the last batch. ChooseActual size in the print dialog, or set the scale to 100%.
A4 and US Letter are separate files. Print the one that matches the paper in your tray: printing the A4 file on Letter reintroduces the same scaling problem.
Paper
| Piece | Paper | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Banner flags | 90 to 120 gsm | Light enough to hang in a curve without pulling the string down |
| Party hats | 160 to 200 gsm matte card | Holds a cone shape and takes a glue tab |
| Cupcake toppers | 160 to 200 gsm matte card | Stands up on a stick instead of flopping |
| Signs | 160 to 200 gsm matte card | Stands in a frame or small easel |
| Favor tags | 160 to 200 gsm matte card | Survives a punched hole and a knot |
Matte, not glossy. Glossy stock smudges under inkjet ink and reflects badly in photographs. If your printer struggles with card, feed it one sheet at a time through the rear or manual tray.
Ink
None of the sheets use a full-page colour fill: the background of every flag, sign and tag is the paper itself. That keeps a whole kit inside a fraction of a cartridge and stops thin paper from cockling. Print one test page before committing to a thirteen-letter banner, so you can check colour and scale on a single sheet.
Cutting
Cut along the dashed 0.25 pt outline. Scissors are fine for the straight edges; a craft knife and a metal ruler give a cleaner line on long cuts. Keep the small top margin on each banner flag, it holds the hanging holes.
The site credit sits outside the cut line on every sheet, so it ends up in the offcut and never on the finished decoration.
Assembly
Banners. Punch the two marked holes near the top corners and thread cotton string or narrow ribbon through the back of each flag. Leave a small gap between letters so the message curves naturally instead of hanging as a straight line.
Hats. Cut the sector, roll it into a cone and glue the marked tab under the opposite edge. A small hole either side takes elastic.
Toppers. Cut two circles, tape a wooden pick between them and push into the frosting.
Nothing prints? Open the PDF in a real PDF reader rather than a browser preview: some browsers reflow the page and quietly rescale it. The paper size is stored in the file, so a reader that respects it will do the right thing at 100%.
Licence
Every file is free for personal use: your party, your classroom, your community event. Reselling the files or the printed pieces is not allowed. Full wording on the terms of use page.