Step 1 — Export at full quality from MSE

Print quality is decided before any printer is involved. Export finished cards as PNG images, as a whole-set batch, at the full resolution your template provides. Resolution in MSE comes from the template, not from a setting in the program, so if your exports look small or soft, fix that first with our high-resolution export guide and our guide to high-resolution templates — printing a low-resolution file larger only makes the softness bigger. Keep front and back images of double-faced cards clearly paired in your file names, and keep the set file and the exports together so you can re-export after corrections.

Step 2 — Think about bleed and colour before you upload or print

Two general print concepts apply on every route below. Bleed: cutters are never perfectly placed, so print files usually extend artwork slightly beyond the finished card edge, and important text and art are kept inside a safe area away from the trim line. Colour: screens show RGB light; printing lays down CMYK ink, and some bright screen colours will print duller — a small proof run is how everyone checks this. Exact file dimensions, bleed amounts and colour settings belong to the printer or service you choose: always follow their own current instructions, not numbers copied from a guide. Our print-preparation guide walks through the MSE side of this step in detail.

Route A — Print at home

Home printing is the fastest and cheapest way to playtest. The common playtest method is to print onto paper, trim, and sleeve the cut-outs over inexpensive backing cards so the deck shuffles and handles like real cards. For nicer home results, a photo printer and glossy photo paper give heavier, glossier stock than plain office paper. If you are shopping for that setup, these are our affiliate links to Amazon searches — the prices and models you will see there are Amazon’s current listings, and we link searches rather than naming a “best” model we have not tested:

• Photo printers on Amazon (affiliate link)
• Glossy photo paper on Amazon (affiliate link)
• Card sleeves on Amazon (affiliate link) — sleeves are what make paper printouts playable, and they protect finished prints afterwards.

Set expectations honestly: home output is for testing and casual play. Ink, paper and hand trimming will not match a factory-printed card, and chasing that last step at home usually costs more than ordering a proof from a service.

Route B — Use a professional print service

For real card stock, accurate cutting and a finished feel, custom-card designers commonly use print-on-demand card services and upload their exported files through the service’s own editor, following that service’s size and bleed instructions. The best-known name in this hobby is MakePlayingCards: MakePlayingCards (MPC). Transparency note: this site currently has no affiliate relationship with MPC — we do not earn a commission if you order there; we list it because it is a commonly used printing service for custom cards, nothing more. Other services in the same space, listed here as ordinary links with no commission relationship either, include BoardGamesMaker, PrintPlayGames and The Game Crafter. Compare each service’s own current card stocks, sizes and instructions on its own site, and — whichever you choose — order a small proof batch before a full set.

Route C — Publish or sell an original design through a print-on-demand ecosystem

A third path is for designers whose goal is not printing their own deck but offering an original game or card product to others. DriveThruCards (affiliate link) is part of the DriveThru family of print-on-demand and digital marketplaces, where creators publish card products that are printed or delivered when someone orders. That is a publishing route for original work, with the marketplace’s own publisher terms — read those terms on its site if this is your goal, and do not confuse it with ordering a private print run of your playtest deck.

Originality and personal use — the boundary

• Print your own original designs, fan designs and parodies for personal, non-commercial play — that is what MSE and this guide are for.
• Do not use a print service to reproduce official card artwork or to make copies intended to pass as genuine cards. Apart from the legal problem, reputable services can refuse or cancel such orders.
• If a card in your set reuses art, use art you made, commissioned with permission, or that is licensed for your use — and credit artists on the card where your template allows it.

Follow the order in this guide — full-quality PNG export, bleed- and colour-aware files, a proof on whichever route you pick — and the printed deck will look like the set you designed.

Keep reading

• Preparing Magic Set Editor Cards for Printing
• Export Higher-Resolution Cards from MSE
• Best Card Sleeves and Binders for Custom Cards

Step 1 — Export from MSE the right way

• Export the finished set as PNG images (File → Export → All Card Images exports the whole set in one batch). PNG is lossless; do not route a print job through JPG exports.
• Export at your template’s full quality. Resolution in MSE comes from the template — if your cards export small, read our high-resolution export guide before printing anything; printing a low-resolution export larger does not add detail.
• Export double-faced cards’ both faces, with file names that keep front/back pairs obvious.

Step 2 — Understand bleed before you upload anything

Printing cuts are never perfectly placed, so print files are usually made slightly larger than the finished card, with the artwork extended into a margin called bleed. The cutter trims inside that margin, so small shifts never leave a white edge. The general concept to carry into any print service’s uploader: your image needs a safe area (keep text and important art away from the edges) plus bleed beyond the trim line (let background and border art run to the edge of the file). How many millimetres of bleed, and the exact file dimensions, are set by the service you use — check their template or help page at the time you order, because those figures are theirs to define.

Step 3 — Colour: screens are RGB, print is CMYK

Your monitor shows colour as light (RGB); commercial printing lays down ink (CMYK). Some saturated screen colours — electric blues and greens especially — cannot be reproduced exactly in ink and will print duller. MSE exports screen images, so treat your first order as a proof: print a small test batch, look at the colours in daylight, and adjust expectations (or artwork) before printing a whole set. This is normal print behaviour, not an MSE fault.

Step 4 — Choose how to print

• At home: works for playtest proxies — print onto paper and sleeve over a basic card. Quality depends entirely on your printer and paper; fine for testing, not a keepsake.
• A print service: for real card stock and cutting, most custom-card designers use a print-on-demand service — MakePlayingCards is a popular one in this hobby — and upload their exported files through its editor. Follow that service’s own size and bleed instructions for the exact product you order.
• Either way: order or print a small proof first. One sheet or one small batch will surface resolution, colour and cutting issues for a fraction of the cost of a full run.

Do those four steps in order — clean PNG export, bleed-aware files, realistic colour expectations, a proof before the full run — and the printed deck will look like the set you designed, not a blurry photocopy of it.

Keep reading

• Export higher-resolution cards from MSE
• Download Magic Set Editor
• How to use Magic Set Editor: the full workflow
• How to Print Custom MTG Cards: Home and Professional Options

The three things that actually decide export quality

1. Your template. This is the big one. Older templates were built from low-resolution frame scans, and cards made with them export at that size no matter what you do. Modern community template packs — the M15-family packs and the large Full pack maintained by the MagicSetEditorPacks community — are built at higher resolutions. Switching the set’s style to a high-resolution template is the single real upgrade. (Our separate guide to high-resolution templates for MSE covers choosing between those packs; the short version is: the newest large packs contain the sharpest frames.)
2. Your source artwork. The art field can only render what you give it. A small, heavily compressed image scaled up by the template will look soft even in a high-resolution frame. Use the largest clean version of each artwork you can.
3. Your export format. Export as PNG. MSE can render cards as png, jpg, bmp or tiff; PNG is lossless, so it preserves every pixel the template produced. JPG re-compresses the image and visibly softens text edges — fine for quick web previews, wrong for anything headed to print.

The workflow, step by step

1. If your current template is an old one, first change the set’s style to a high-resolution template from a current community pack, then look over the set — fields and layout can differ slightly between templates, so check a few cards before exporting all of them.
2. Replace any obviously low-resolution artwork with larger sources while you are checking.
3. Export with File → Export → All Card Images so the whole set renders in one consistent batch, and choose PNG.
4. Open one exported file and check its pixel dimensions and a zoomed-in corner of rules text. That file — not the editor preview — is the quality your readers and printer will get.

What not to waste time on: upscaling the exported images afterwards. Enlarging a low-resolution export with an image editor adds pixels but not detail, and text stays soft. If an export looks low-resolution, the remedy is upstream — a better template — not downstream processing. Export at the template’s native quality, in PNG, and you are getting everything MSE can honestly give you.

Keep reading

• Preparing MSE cards for printing
• How to use Magic Set Editor: the full workflow
• Download Magic Set Editor

File and editing

Cards, keywords and finding things fast

Ctrl+K deserves a note: the author’s changelog for version 2.1.0 records it as that release’s added search shortcut, and the quick search box it focuses is more powerful than it looks — the same changelog documents field-specific searches, so typing type:Wizard finds cards with Wizard in the type field. Searching by field, rarity or colour text turns the card list into a fast editing queue when you are fixing a whole set.

Formatting text

These four cover most rules-text work: bold and italic for emphasis, Ctrl+M when you are entering mana and other symbols, and Ctrl+R around reminder text. In the Statistics tab, the graph style itself has menu keys — 1 to 5 switch between pie, bar, stacked bars, scatter plot and scatter-pie views.

An honest caveat about versions

The menu definitions above come from the program’s English locale file as published in the author’s repository (the file’s own header dates it 2020). The author’s program line ends at 2.1.2, and community builds distributed since then are maintained by the community — a given community package could, in principle, adjust a menu. If a key ever disagrees with your copy, trust the menu in front of you: the shortcut printed beside a menu item is the program telling you its own answer.

Keep reading

• How to use Magic Set Editor: the full workflow
• Bullet points in Magic Set Editor rules text
• How to install Magic Set Editor

How symbols work in MSE

In a card’s cost and text fields, symbol positions are filled from the template’s symbol font. The program provides the machinery: the Format menu includes a Symbols toggle and an Insert Symbol menu, through which you pick symbols from the set your current symbol font defines. The author’s own documentation of that menu shows it is data-driven — its entries, submenus and codes are defined per symbol font, with entries such as the five mana colours and hybrid combinations like W/U. Change the template or its symbol font, and the menu’s contents change with it.

Getting Phyrexian symbols on a card

1. Start from the template, not the text box. Use a current Magic template pack — the actively maintained community packs track modern symbol sets, and Phyrexian symbols are part of the modern game, so a complete, up-to-date pack is the place to expect them.
2. Open the Insert Symbol menu in the cost or text field and browse what your symbol font actually offers. If Phyrexian entries are present, insert them from the menu rather than typing look-alike letters — inserted symbols render from the symbol font at the right size and baseline.
3. If there is no Phyrexian entry, your symbol font does not include one. No typing trick fixes a missing glyph honestly: the practical fix is a more complete or newer template pack, after which you re-check the same menu.

What we could not verify — and why this guide stops there

Guides elsewhere sometimes quote a specific typed code for Phyrexian mana. We checked the program author’s own repository and documentation for this article: the upstream program documentation describes the Insert Symbol system but does not publish a Phyrexian code, because the codes belong to each template’s symbol font and can differ between packs. Rather than print a code that may insert the wrong symbol — or nothing — in your template, this guide points you at the menu, which always shows the truth for the pack you have installed.

One consistency tip once your symbols are in: Phyrexian mana can appear both in costs and in rules text. Use the inserted symbols in both places, so the whole card renders in one symbol style, and preview an exported image before printing — symbol rendering is a frame-level detail worth eyeballing at final size.

Keep reading

• Bullet points in Magic Set Editor rules text
• Color indicator in Magic Set Editor
• How to use Magic Set Editor: the full workflow

Why the program itself has no colour indicator setting

MSE is a frame-rendering program: the template defines which fields exist on a card — name, cost, type line, text box, and any extras — and the program edits whatever fields the template provides. There is no colour-indicator control in the program’s own menus, because the indicator is part of the frame artwork and field layout. Templates that model modern frames include a way to show the indicator; templates built from older or simpler frames may not have the field at all. Asking ‘where is the colour indicator option in MSE?’ is therefore really asking ‘does my installed template include it?’

When your design needs one

• Back faces of double-faced cards whose colour differs from (or simply is not shown by) the front face — the most common case, and the reason the indicator exists.
• Cards with no mana cost that are nevertheless meant to be a specific colour, where the template supports indicating it.
• Ordinary cards with a normal mana cost do not need one — their cost already declares their colour, and real cards in that situation do not carry the dot.

Working with it in practice

1. Check your template first. With a modern-frame template selected, look at the card’s editable fields for the indicator option — its name and location are set by the template, so they vary between packs. If the field exists, setting the colour there renders the dot on the type line.
2. If your template has no indicator field, you have two honest options: switch to a template pack that includes one (the large, actively maintained community packs cover the modern frames most completely), or accept the frame as-is. There is no program setting being missed.
3. Keep the indicator consistent with the design: the colours it shows should match the face’s intended colour identity for rules purposes, and both faces of a double-faced card should be checked together before export.

As with double-faced frames themselves, support differs pack by pack and improves as the community template packs are updated — if the indicator matters to your set, choosing a current, complete template pack is the fix, not a hidden option somewhere in the program.

Keep reading

• Double-faced cards in Magic Set Editor
• How to use Magic Set Editor: the full workflow
• Phyrexian mana symbols in Magic Set Editor

Option 1 — The <li> list marker (built into the text system)

MSE text fields are tag-based: formatting is stored as lightweight markup inside the text. The program’s own documentation describes an <li> tag with a specific job: text inside the tag is treated as a list marker, meaning that when the line after it wraps, the wrapped portion is indented to align with the content following the marker instead of running back to the left edge. That hanging indent is exactly what makes a bulleted list readable on a card.

Honesty note: the author’s changelog for version 2.1.0 lists the <li> tag as experimental. It is a real, documented part of the text system, but treat it as such — check the rendered result on your template, because experimental features and individual templates do not always get along, and keep your source text simple enough that the card still reads correctly if the marker is ignored.

Option 2 — Type the bullet character directly

The approach that works in every template is also the oldest: start each option line with a bullet character (•) followed by a space, and put each option on its own line. This is plain text — no tags, no template support required — and it is how many real modal cards read anyway once rendered. The trade-offs to know:

• Wrapped lines will run back to the left margin (no hanging indent), so keep options short enough to fit on one line where you can.
• How the bullet glyph looks depends on the fonts your template uses; if a bullet renders as a box or blank, your template’s font lacks the character — switch to a hyphen-style marker or the <li> approach instead.

Writing list text that survives the card frame

• Lead with ‘Choose one —’ (or the appropriate count) on its own line, then the options. The lead-in is part of the ability’s text, not a heading.
• Keep each option parallel: same sentence shape, same capitalisation, full stops in the same places. Inconsistent options are the most common giveaway of a home-made card.
• Preview at final size. Rules text shrinks to fit its box. A list that looks fine zoomed in can become the smallest text on the card — shorten options before you accept tiny type.
• Check the export, not just the editor. Render one card image and look at the list in the exported file; that is the version your readers and printer will see.

Keep reading

• How to use Magic Set Editor: the full workflow
• Phyrexian mana symbols in Magic Set Editor
• Magic Set Editor keyboard shortcuts

Where DFC frames actually come from

Community template packs are where DFC support lives. The actively maintained Full-Magic-Pack, for example, bundles a wide range of Magic frames and explicitly includes double-faced-related template artwork sourced from CardConjurer — its file list credits CardConjurer for, among others, the Innistrad Double Feature templates. Template packs are still being updated in 2026, and newer DFC frame styles arrive through pack updates like these, not through program updates — the program itself has been frozen at the author’s 2.1.2 since 2020, with the community distributing its own builds.

Practical consequence: if a guide or video shows a DFC frame you cannot find, you are almost certainly looking at a different — usually newer or larger — template pack than the one installed on your machine.

Finding the right template pack

• For the widest frame selection, use one of the large community packs (the Full or Advanced-style bundles collect the most frames, including the showcase and DFC variants).
• If you installed only the author’s 2.1.2 program zip, you have no game templates at all — DFCs or otherwise. Install a template pack first; our installation guide covers the data-folder step.
• Check the pack’s own file list or README for the DFC frames it includes before downloading — pack contents differ, and ‘includes DFC templates’ is a per-pack fact, not a program feature.

Working with two faces

Once a DFC-capable template is installed, the workflow is template-driven: the DFC frame provides the structure for the front and back faces, and you fill in each face’s fields — name, type, rules text and art — the same way you edit any other card. A few habits keep two-faced designs manageable:

• Design both faces together. A transform card is one design, not two. Costs, colours and power levels on the back face are constrained by how the front face plays.
• Mind the colour indicator. Back faces that differ in colour from the front typically carry a colour indicator — in MSE that, too, is handled by the template rather than the program. See our colour indicator guide for how that works.
• Export both faces. When you batch-export card images, confirm your export includes both faces of each DFC, and keep front/back files named consistently so printers and opponents can pair them.
• For physical play, DFCs are usually sleeved over a placeholder or printed double-sided — plan that at export time, not at the table.

Bottom line: stop looking for a DFC option in the program. Get a current community template pack that lists DFC frames, and the capability arrives with the template.

Keep reading

• How to use Magic Set Editor: the full workflow
• Color indicator in Magic Set Editor
• Export higher-resolution cards from MSE

1. Create the set and set it up properly

Start a new set and choose your Magic template — for a first set, pick the standard modern frame from your template pack rather than an exotic showcase frame, so every field and symbol you need is present. Then go straight to the Set Information tab before designing a single card:

• Set name and code: give the set a name and a short code. They appear in the set’s data and exports, and renaming later means touching finished cards.
• Card language: in Set info, under the defaults, set the card language. This is separate from the program interface language (chosen in the welcome window) and controls things like keyword and reminder-text behaviour for your cards.
• Set symbol: MSE includes a vector-based symbol editor, so you can draw a simple set symbol of your own instead of borrowing one. A basic shape is fine — you can refine it later, and the same symbol is reused across the whole set.

2. Design the skeleton before the cards

Decide the set’s shape on paper first: the five colours’ themes, roughly how many commons, uncommons and rares you want, and any mechanics you plan to feature. Then create your keyword list in the Keywords tab for those mechanics — MSE’s automatic keyword system will expand them with reminder text as you type them on cards, which keeps wording consistent across the set. Consistency is the invisible difference between a set that feels real and one that feels homemade.

3. Enter cards in passes, not one by one to perfection

Work through the card list in passes: first pass, names, costs and types for everything; second pass, rules text; third pass, flavour text, rarity and artwork. Keep an eye on the Statistics window as you go — it reports figures such as your average mana cost and the count at each rarity, which is how you notice early that, say, green has quietly become twice as expensive as every other colour. Fixing curve problems at 30 cards is easy; at 200 it is a rewrite.

4. Playtest with random packs and sealed pools

Here is the step most first-time designers skip — and MSE supports it directly. The program can generate randomized booster packs and Sealed pools from your set. Generate a few pools and actually look at them as a player: Is there enough removal? Can every colour build a deck? Do the mechanics show up at common, or only on rares where nobody sees them? A sealed pool is the fastest honest review your set will ever get, and it costs you ten minutes.

5. Export a first version and share it

Export the set as individual card images (PNG) or as an HTML spoiler — both are built-in export options — and get eyes on it. Other players will find the broken card and the confusing wording within a day. Treat that feedback as the next design pass, not a verdict.

One habit to start now: keep a backup copy of your set project file somewhere other than the folder you work in. A set represents weeks of design work in a single project; copying that file to a second location (another drive, or any cloud folder you already use) takes a minute and is the cheapest insurance in this entire hobby.

Keep reading

• How to use Magic Set Editor: the full workflow
• Which Magic Set Editor version should you download?
• Preparing MSE cards for printing

Step 1 — Create a new set

A set is MSE’s project file: it holds every card, the set information, and the style choices for the whole project. When you start a new set, the program asks which game and which template (stylesheet) to use. That choice matters more than any other in this guide, because the template decides the card frame, the fields you can edit, the available symbols, and the resolution of everything you export later. You can change styles later, but fields that only exist in one template do not magically appear in another.

Next, open the Set Information tab and fill in the basics: the set name, its code, and the card language. The card language is set per set, here in the set info — it is separate from the program’s interface language, which you pick in the welcome window. Getting the language right at the start saves re-editing reminder text and keywords across dozens of cards.

Step 2 — Add and edit cards

Cards live in the card list on the Cards tab. Add a card, select it, and fill in its fields: name, mana cost, type line, rules text, power/toughness where the template has them, rarity, and artwork. A few editing behaviours are worth knowing from day one:

• Keywords are automatic. MSE has a keyword system: type a recognised keyword and the program can expand it with its reminder text. The Keywords tab is where you review and adjust the keywords used in your set.
• Symbols are inserted, not typed as pictures. Mana and other symbols come from the template’s symbol font. Use the Format menu’s Insert Symbol options (and the Symbols toggle) instead of pasting Unicode look-alikes, so the symbols scale and print like real ones.
• Formatting is tag-based. Bold and italic are applied from the Format menu, and the underlying text system uses lightweight markup tags — the same system that powers reminder text and list markers.
• Artwork is a field, not a background. Each card’s image sits in its own field defined by the template. Pick the highest-resolution source image you have; MSE will scale it to the template, and it cannot invent detail that is not in your source.

Step 3 — Check the set with the Statistics window

Before exporting, open the Statistics window. This is one of MSE’s documented strengths: it summarises your set with figures such as the average mana cost (mana value) of your cards and how many cards you have at each rarity, and the program can chart set data in several graph styles. Use it as a design tool, not decoration — a custom set where half the cards are rares, or where one colour’s average cost is far above the others, plays very differently from how it reads card by card. Fix the outliers in the card list, then check the statistics again.

Step 4 — Export your cards

MSE can output a finished set in several ways, all from the File menu’s export options:

• Card images: render cards as png, jpg, bmp or tiff files — a single card, or the whole set in one batch export (All Card Images). PNG is the right default for anything that will be printed or edited further, because it is lossless.
• HTML: export the set as an HTML spoiler — a web page presenting the whole set, made for publishing your set online.
• Play online: export to LackeyCCG or Cockatrice (older export options also mention Apprentice) so you can actually play games with your custom cards instead of only looking at them.

That is the whole loop: set up the project once, edit cards against the statistics, then export in whatever form the cards are for — images for printing and sharing, HTML for a spoiler page, or a LackeyCCG/Cockatrice export for playtesting. The guides below go deeper on each stage.

Keep reading

• Make your first custom MTG set
• How to install Magic Set Editor
• Export higher-resolution cards from MSE