How to Create Paper QSL Cards

Use a Commercial QSL Printer

The traditional way of creating a paper QSL card was to order cards from a commercial QSL printer. These printers typically have a set of common cards that you can choose from, and most also will work with you to design the card you want. The minimum quantity of cards that you can order varies from printer to printer, but 100, 500, and 1000 cards are typical minima.

Use a Print Shop

With this method, you must design the card yourself and save it either as a word processor or JPEG file. In either case, include a full page image, not just the image for a single card. Take the file to your local print shop and order the number of cards that you want. This method is typically more expensive than using a commercial QSL printer, but has the advantage that you can specify exactly the number of cards that you want, and your order will probably be processed more quickly.

Use the QSL Card Printing Function in Your Logging Program

Many QSO logging programs have a card design and printing function. The cards produced tend to be rather simplistic in design, containing possibly a single background image, your callsign, QTH, a salutation, and data for one or more QSOs.

Use a Word Processing Program and Data Exchange

A quick search of the Internet will turn up a few pages describing how to use Microsoft Word with DDE, or Open Office to design and print QSL cards. The cards produced using this method are either rather simplistic, or require a lot of design work because the program being used is not optimized for creating QSL cards.

Use a Web-Based Designer

As with the two methods directly above, the resulting card tends to be simplistic in design

Stand-Alone Design And Print Programs

The only two programs that I know of in this category are QslMaker and QslDesignAndPrint.

QslMaker

QslMaker is a program that was written more than a decade ago and has not been updated or enhanced for many years. You are limited to a single image on the card, and a single QSO. There are few options to control the content of the card.

QslDesignAndPrint

QslDesignAndPrint was created to overcome the limitations of other methods and programs to create and print QSL cards yourself. The program has a very large list of capabilities, and is descibed and may be downloaded elsewhere on this website.