QSL Postcard Designer — User Guide

The QSL Postcard Designer lets you design your own physical QSL postcards in Wavelog and print them as a ready-to-print PDF. You drag contact details (callsign, band, date, address, etc.) onto a card, save the design as a reusable template, and then generate a multi-page PDF — one postcard per callsign.

Cards are standard 5.5 × 3.5 inch (≈ 13.97 × 8.89 cm) landscape QSL cards, the size most bureaus and printers expect.

1. Before you start (prerequisites)

• You must be logged in.
• The feature needs the userdata directory to be configured in Wavelog (this is where your uploaded background images are stored). If it isn't set, the page shows a message telling you to compare your config.php with config.sample.php.
• Mailing addresses are looked up automatically from your callbook (e.g. QRZ / HamQTH). A postcard is only produced for a callsign that has a usable mailing address on file. If a callsign has no address, its card is silently skipped.

Units: the designer follows your measurement preference. If you use kilometres, dimensions are shown in centimetres; otherwise inches. Either way the printed PDF is always correct.

2. Opening the designer

Open the user menu -> QSL Postcard Designer (the card icon). You land on a three-pane editor with a toolbar across the top.

3. Quick start (5 steps)

1. (Optional) Upload a background image — see §7.
2. Drag fields from the Fields list on the left onto the card (or just click a field to drop it on the canvas).
3. Click a field on the card and use the Properties panel on the right to set font, size, colour, position, etc.
4. Set the Template Options (right side): how many QSOs per card, whether to print the background, whether to print the address.
5. Save — type a name and click Save.

You now have a template you can print from, described in §11.

4. Toolbar

5. Placing and arranging fields

Adding a field

• Drag a field from the left list onto the card and drop it where you want it.
• Or click a field to drop it at the next free spot.
• Use the search box at the top of the list to filter fields by name.
• Add Custom Text puts a free-text element on the card (e.g. your name, "73", a QSL manager note). Edit its wording in the Properties panel.

Field categories

Selecting

• Click an element to select it.
• Shift-click or Ctrl-click to add/remove from the selection (multi-select).
• Drag on empty canvas to rubber-band select everything in a rectangle.
• Ctrl + A selects all; Esc clears the selection.
• The Properties panel always reflects the last-selected element. Font, size, bold, colour, wrap and the "repeats" toggle apply to all selected elements.

Moving & snapping

• Drag elements to move them. Whole groups move together when several are selected.
• Elements snap to a ¼-inch grid and to the edges/centres of other elements — faint guide lines appear while snapping.
• Hold Alt while dragging to move freely without snapping (temporary).
• Nudge with the arrow keys (hold Shift for a bigger grid-sized step).

Right-click menu

Right-click an element for Duplicate, Delete, and (with 2+ selected) Align & distribute: align left/centre/right, top/middle/bottom, distribute evenly, or centre the group on the page.

6. The Properties panel

When an element is selected, edit it here:

7. Background images

1. In the toolbar, choose a file (.jpg, .jpeg, or .png, up to 5 MB).

2. Click Upload. The image becomes the card's background in the canvas.

3. Whether the background is printed on the final PDF is controlled by the Print background image option (§8). Uncheck it if you'll be printing onto pre-printed card stock.

4. Background images are tied to your templates: when you delete the last template that uses an image, the file is removed from disk automatically.

8. Multi-QSO cards (several contacts per card)

Use Template Options -> Number of QSOs per QSL card to put more than one contact on a single card (e.g. several bands/modes with the same station).

When this is greater than 1:

• Set "Row spacing" — the vertical distance between each repeated QSO row.
• Mark any field that should print once per QSO (callsign, band, date, RST…) with Repeats per QSO in its Properties. Faded ghost copies appear below it in the editor so you can see how the rows will line up.
• Fields without "Repeats per QSO" (your header text, return address, etc.) print once per card.
• Address fields always print once per card — a card is always addressed to a single station.

Cards are always grouped by callsign. One postcard never mixes contacts with different callsigns. If a callsign has more QSOs than fit on one card, the extras spill onto a second card for the same station.

Other template options

• Print background image — include the uploaded background on the PDF. Uncheck for pre-printed cards.
• Skip address printing — checked by default. Uncheck it when you want the recipient's mailing address printed on the card (i.e. you're mailing the cards yourself, not using pre-addressed stock).

9. Calibration & print offset

Printers rarely feed a sheet perfectly centred. Rather than nudging every field, use the toolbar's Print offset X / Y to shift all elements together by a fixed amount at print time.

Recommended workflow:

1. Set offsets to 0 / 0, generate a demo PDF, and print one test sheet.
2. Measure how far everything is off.
3. Enter the correction in Print offset X / Y (positive moves elements right / down).
4. Re-print to confirm. Save the template so the calibration is remembered.

10. Saving, loading & deleting templates

• Save: type a name in Template name and click Save. Saving again with the same template loaded updates it in place.
• Load: choose a template from the Template dropdown. Your most recently used template and zoom level are remembered between visits.
• Delete: load the template, then click the trash button and confirm. Deleting a template also cleans up its background image if nothing else uses it.

Templates are private to your user account.

11. Printing postcards for real

Once you have a saved template, there are two ways to print real postcards from your logbook:

1. User menu -> QSL Queue page.
2. Advanced logbook. Check which contacts to generate a PDF, then selected "Print QSL card" from the Actions menu.

A. All QSOs awaiting a card

Click "Print Postcards for all QSOs". This gathers every QSO in your QSL print queue (requested or not-yet-sent), picks a template, and produces a PDF — one qslcard per callsign.

B. Specific QSOs you selected

In the QSL print list, tick the QSOs you want, then click "Print Selected QSO Postcards". Choose a template and generate the PDF for just those contacts.

All print options come from the template, not from the print screens. The number of QSOs per card, background, and address settings are whatever you saved in the designer.

C. Quick proof / demo PDF

From the designer toolbar, the PDF button produces a demo PDF using a handful of your most recent QSOs — handy for checking layout and calibration before a real print run.

Generating a PDF does not mark QSOs as "sent". After you've actually mailed the cards, mark them sent separately from the QSL print page ("Mark requested QSLs as sent").

12. Keyboard & mouse reference

13. Tips & troubleshooting

• A station's card is missing from the PDF. That callsign had no usable mailing address in your callbook, so it was skipped. Look the address up and it'll appear next time (addresses are cached for ~20 days).
• Everything prints slightly off-centre. Use Print offset X / Y (§9) rather than moving individual fields.
• Text runs off the card edge. Lower the font size, or set a Wrap width so long values (addresses, comments) wrap onto multiple lines.
• Using pre-printed card stock. Turn off "Print background image" and leave "Skip address printing" on, then place only the QSO detail fields you need.
• Mailing the cards yourself. Turn off "Skip address printing" so the recipient address prints on each card.
• More than one contact per station. Raise "Number of QSOs per QSL card" and tick Repeats per QSO on the per-contact fields (§8).