Production readiness

Summary

Review production readiness, in Export, checks your design for issues that could affect printing or cutting and reports them as either blocking (must be fixed) or warnings (informational). It always reports at least two permanent placeholder warnings, since the app's grid pitch and print color profile aren't finalized yet.

Use it when

• Before exporting or ordering, to catch problems early.
• When you're not sure whether something in your design (low resolution, artwork hanging off the edge) is a real issue.

Before you begin

Nothing to prepare — Review production readiness is available at any time in Export, with any amount of content (including none).

Steps

1. Open Export and select Review production readiness.
2. Read the overall status: Blocked, or Ready, with warnings.
3. Read Blocking issues (if any) — these must be resolved before you can meaningfully proceed.
4. Read Design warnings (if any) and Unresolved production placeholders — these describe real conditions worth knowing about but don't stop you from exporting or ordering.
5. Read Details for a plain summary: format, target output resolution, layer counts, the cut guide filename, and notes on what's preview-only.
6. Select Close when done. Reopen the review after making changes — it reflects a snapshot of the canvas at the moment you opened it, not a live-updating check.

What changes

• The status badge reads Blocked whenever there is no visible artwork on the canvas — either no layers exist at all, or every layer is hidden. The exact wording differs by cause: Add artwork, paint, a shape, a path, or text before exporting or ordering. for a genuinely empty design, versus Every layer on this design is currently hidden. Show at least one layer before proceeding. when layers exist but are all hidden.
• Once there's visible artwork, the status becomes Ready, with warnings — in every test performed, at least the two placeholder warnings were present, so a plain "Ready" with zero warnings was never observed.
• Confirmed Design warnings triggers: Layer below print-quality resolution (effective DPI under 150, see Effective DPI and resolution warnings), Layer extends past the artboard edge (a layer only partially overlapping the artboard), and Layer source color mode could not be determined (an uploaded image whose original color mode the app couldn't detect).
• Unresolved production placeholders consistently listed two items: the placeholder print color profile, and the unconfirmed grid/ perforation spacing — matching the same placeholder notices found throughout the rest of the app.

Print note

This review does not itself change anything about your design or export — it's read-only, diagnostic information. The Details section states plainly which parts of what you see are preview-only (paper texture, soft proof) and confirms they're never part of exported pixels, consistent with Grid and realistic preview and RGB, CMYK & print color.

Warnings and limits

• This review is a snapshot, not a live check — its own text says so: This reflects the current canvas state — reopen after changes to refresh it. If you fix an issue, reopen the review to confirm it cleared; don't assume the same open dialog will update.
• Whether Export PNG, Export print PDF + cut guide, or Add to cart are actually prevented while the design is Blocked was not conclusively confirmed in this session's testing — none of those buttons were disabled while blocked, and clicking Export PNG in that state produced no visible error, dialog, or console message either way. Treat whether a hard export block exists as Needs product confirmation, and don't rely on the buttons being disabled as your signal that something is wrong — check the review directly instead.
• The two placeholder warnings (color profile, grid pitch) are permanent until TDL finalizes those values — they are not something you can resolve from within the editor.

Desktop and mobile

Review production readiness and its status badge were confirmed present and functional on both desktop and mobile — reachable from Export on desktop and the Export sheet on mobile.

Troubleshooting

Related topics

• Effective DPI and resolution warnings
• Export PNG
• Print PDF + Silhouette cut guide
• RGB, CMYK & print color

Verification note

Verified against Blotter Builder on 2026-07-20.

Source notes

Primary observations — all from the live application at https://blotterbuilder.tdl.fyi, 2026-07-20:

• Observed — on an empty artboard, Review production readiness showed status Blocked (class _statusBlocked_...) with a Blocking issues section: No visible artwork on the canvas — Add artwork, paint, a shape, a path, or text before exporting or ordering.
• Observed — with the only layer hidden (not deleted), status remained Blocked, but the message changed to: No visible artwork on the canvas — Every layer on this design is currently hidden. Show at least one layer before proceeding.
• Observed — with a layer placed via Fill canvas, status became Ready, with warnings (class _statusOk_...), with a Design warnings section: Layer source color mode could not be determined.
• Observed — with a layer placed via Place image at native size (low DPI, extending past the artboard), Design warnings additionally showed: Layer below print-quality resolution — "Image 1" is only about 96 DPI at its placed size — below the 150 DPI print-quality minimum and may look blurry or pixelated. and Layer extends past the artboard edge — "Image 1" only partially overlaps the Classic square boundary. This may be intentional (a full-bleed crop) — verify before proceeding.
• Observed — Unresolved production placeholders consistently listed: Print color profile is a placeholder and Grid/perforation spacing is unconfirmed, in every state tested.
• Observed — the Details section included Format, Target output resolution (300 DPI target → 2250 × 2250px raster output for Classic square), Layer counts, Cut guide (filenames classicSquare-cut-guide.svg paired with classicSquare.pdf), and explicit notes that paper texture and soft proof are preview-only and never part of exported pixels.
• Observed — with the design Blocked, Export PNG, Export print PDF + cut guide, and Add to cart were all not disabled. Clicking Export PNG while blocked produced no dialog, no console message, and no detectable network/download signal distinguishable from doing nothing — inconclusive, noted as such rather than guessed at.
• Observed — at 390 × 844, the status badge (Blocked on an empty canvas) was present and reachable via the Export sheet.

Verification log