Engraving Text Typed Into a Box With No Limit

The message that would not fit

An order comes in for an engraved gift. In the engraving box, the customer has typed a four-line message, a surname spelled two different ways, and a request for a script font with a heart at the end.

The item holds two short lines. The engraver has to shorten the message, guess the spelling and work out what the note about the font meant.

Whatever the engraver decides, the customer may be disappointed, and an engraved item cannot be sold to anyone else.

What a plain text box lets through

A single text box accepts anything a customer types, at any length, and passes it on as one string of characters. On a personalised product, that causes predictable trouble:

• Too many letters for the space on the item.
• Lost line breaks, so the engraver guesses where each line ends.
• Instructions mixed in with the words to be engraved.
• Names spelled as typed, often in a hurry on a phone.
• Capitals as typed, whether all lowercase or all shouting.

None of these is the customer's fault alone. The box asked for nothing in particular, so it received everything.

Instructions that never reach the engraver

Customers who want a particular font or layout often type it in the order notes at checkout. Those notes may appear in the shop's admin pages but not in the order email the engraver works from.

Others type the instructions into the engraving box itself. The engraver then has to decide which words are the message, and sometimes engraves the instruction too.

Place a test order and read the email exactly as the engraver receives it, on paper and on a phone. Whatever is missing there is missing from the job.

Limits that match the item

Measure the engraving area on each product with the engraver, and turn it into a number of lines and a number of characters per line for each font offered.

Then give each line its own field, with that limit set in the field so it stops accepting letters at the edge. A counter beside each field shows how many characters remain.

Different items get different limits. A pen and a plaque should never share one box.

A preview of the words on the item

A preview shows the text on a picture of the item as the customer types. It need not be elaborate: the words in the chosen font, at the right size, in the right space.

Seeing a name on the object catches spelling that reading a form does not. It also shows why the fifth line was never going to fit.

On a phone, keep the preview beside the fields or just above them, so the customer watches it change while typing.

Capitals, dates and symbols

Say whether text is engraved exactly as typed or set in capitals, and show it that way in the preview. A customer who typed in lowercase on a phone may not expect lowercase on the gift.

Give dates a fixed format, such as June 21, 2014, rather than numerals that read differently in different countries.

List the symbols the engraver can cut, such as an ampersand or a heart, and keep the field from accepting the rest.

A worked example

A craft soda maker brews small batches in an industrial unit with a tasting counter at the front. Online it sells gift crates of six bottles, the wooden lid engraved with a name and a short message.

A sign maker down the road engraves the lids from order emails the soda maker forwards. The engraving option was a single box with no limit.

Customers typed whole wedding toasts, names spelled two ways, and notes such as use the curly font, which were sometimes engraved word for word. Notes typed at checkout never reached the sign maker at all.

The lid now has three line fields, with limits worked out with the sign maker, a choice of three fonts, and a preview on a photo of the lid. A separate requests field appears in the forwarded email.

The cart and the confirmation email repeat the text word for word, with a window to correct it until the next morning. The customer now proofreads the very words the engraver will receive.

Confirming the exact text

Before payment, show the engraving text on its own, line by line, under a plain heading: this is exactly what we will engrave. Ask the customer to check spelling, capitals and dates.

Repeat it in the confirmation email, and say how long the customer has to correct it before work starts. Reading it again at home catches what was missed at checkout.

If a correction arrives, confirm the new text back in writing, so there is one agreed version on record.

A returns policy for personalised items

An engraved item cannot be resold, so many shops do not take one back unless the mistake is theirs. Say so on the product page and at checkout, before payment, not only in the terms.

Pair it with the promise that makes it fair: the shop engraves exactly the confirmed text, and remakes anything it gets wrong. This is general information, not legal advice; consumer rules differ between provinces.

A clear policy also helps the customer, who knows before paying that the spelling check is theirs to make.

The counter-case

Some shops take only a few engraving orders a month and phone every customer to read the text back. That call is already a confirmation step, and a preview may be more than they need.

But customers order in the evening, and the call still starts from whatever they typed. Limits per line and an order email that carries every field help the call as much as the engraver.

And the busy weeks before graduations and holidays are when the calls stop and the box is left to do the job alone.

Setting up the engraving fields

1. Measure the engraving area on each product.
2. Give each line its own field and limit.
3. Add a preview of the text on the item.
4. Move instructions into a field of their own.
5. Test the order email the engraver works from.
6. Repeat the exact text before payment and in the confirmation.
7. State the returns policy on the product page.

Step five is quick and often the most revealing. Fields a customer filled in carefully are worth nothing if the engraver never sees them.

The coupon code box that sends shoppers searching looks at another small box with a large effect on an order, this time at checkout.

Frequently asked questions

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