Your First Trophy Order

This guide walks through a complete real-world scenario: a school coach emails you a list of 50 names for an awards ceremony, and you need to produce engraved name plates. We'll go from that email to a laser-ready SVG file.

The scenario

You receive this email from Lincoln High School:

Hi! We need name plates for our annual sports awards ceremony on Feb 15.
Here are the names:

1. John Smith - Captain
2. José García - MVP
3. O'Brien, Mary - Vice Captain
4. Dr. Christopher Richardson-Montgomery III - Honorary Coach
5. Sarah Kim
... (45 more names)

Please use gold text on black acrylic, 3" x 1" plates.
Thanks, Coach Williams
coach@lincoln.edu

Step 1: Create the job

From your CraftStage dashboard, click Create Job and enter:

• Customer name: Lincoln High School
• Customer email: coach@lincoln.edu
• Reference number: Awards-2026 (optional, for your records)
• Due date: Feb 15, 2026

Click Save. The parse dialog opens automatically.

Step 2: Parse the email

Select the Paste Text tab and paste the email body. Click Parse.

After a few seconds, CraftStage shows the results. Notice:

• "John Smith" and "José García" have green checkmarks — high confidence
• "O'Brien, Mary" was reordered to "Mary O'Brien" with a yellow flag — the AI detected "Last, First" format and flipped it, but wants you to verify
• The accent in "José" and the apostrophe in "O'Brien" are preserved
• Each name's title (Captain, MVP, etc.) was extracted as a separate field

Click on the yellow-flagged item to verify "Mary O'Brien" is correct. Clear the flag, then click Add 50 items to job.

Step 3: Assign a template

On the job detail page, select your "3×1 Name Plate" template from the dropdown. If you haven't created this template yet, you'll need to set one up with:

• Width: 3 inches, Height: 1 inch
• Name field: positioned at x: 0.25, y: 0.15, width: 2.5, height: 0.4, font size 14pt, overflow policy "shrink to fit", min font size 8pt
• Title field: positioned at x: 0.25, y: 0.55, width: 2.5, height: 0.3, font size 10pt, overflow policy "shrink to fit", min font size 7pt

CraftStage suggests a field mapping: "name" → name, "title" → title. Accept the mapping and click Apply.

Step 4: Check the layout

The items table now shows layout status for each item. Most show "Ready" in green. Notice:

• "Dr. Christopher Richardson-Montgomery III" shows "Shrunk" — the name was reduced from 14pt to 10.5pt to fit the 2.5-inch field
• "Sarah Kim" (no title) shows the title field as empty — that's fine since the title field isn't marked as required

Step 5: Run preflight

Click the Preflight tab. CraftStage checks all 50 items. The results show:

• 0 errors — great, nothing blocks export
• 1 warning — "Dr. Christopher Richardson-Montgomery III" was shrunk more than 30%
• 2 info — special characters present in "José García" and "Mary O'Brien"

Review the shrink warning. The name went from 14pt to 10.5pt — that's a 25% reduction. It's still readable on a 3-inch plate, so you can proceed. If it were too small, you could shorten the name or increase the field width.

Step 6: Generate proofs and get approval

Click Generate Proofs. Watch the progress as CraftStage renders each name plate. After about 30 seconds, all 50 proofs are ready.

Click Send Approval to generate a link. Copy the link and email it to Coach Williams:

"Hi Coach Williams, your name plates are ready for review. Please click this link to approve: [link]. Let me know if any changes are needed!"

Coach Williams opens the link on their phone, swipes through the proofs, and clicks Approve All Remaining after checking a few. You get a notification that the order is approved.

Step 7: Export

Click Export. Select your "Epilog Helix 24×12" machine profile (or configure one with your laser's sheet size, margins, and cut color). Choose:

• Format: SVG
• Text mode: Curves (recommended)
• Only approved items: checked

The preview shows 5 sheets with 10 name plates per sheet. Click Export, then Download when it's ready.

Step 8: Send to laser

Open the SVG in CorelDRAW. Notice:

• No font substitution warnings — text is converted to curves
• Cut lines are in red (#FF0000) and engrave areas are in black (#000000)
• Items are arranged in a grid matching your material sheet

Set up your color-based routing in the print dialog (red = cut, black = engrave) and send it to the laser.

What you saved

Without CraftStage, this order would have required:

• Manually formatting the email into a Print Merge–compatible spreadsheet (15–30 min)
• Fighting with Print Merge to handle the long name and special characters (15–30 min)
• Manually reviewing every single page of output (10–15 min)
• Email back-and-forth for approval (hours or days)
• Potentially re-doing work after finding font issues at the laser (30+ min)

With CraftStage, the entire process took about 5 minutes of active work plus waiting for customer approval.