Use this article when your shop runs wide-format roll-fed or sheet-fed work — vinyl banners, mesh banners, rigid board displays, vehicle signage, exhibition graphics — and you need Estimator to price by linear length or area instead of by parent sheet on every quote. After this you will have a large-format category that appears in the create-estimate product picker, prices by area or linear length, and routes the print pass to your wide-format machine with the correct ink-pass count.
Steps
1. Create the category
Open Estimate Setup → Products → Categories, then select + Add New. Fill in the fields below.
Identification
Name — the customer-facing product family (e.g., "Banner", "Board", "Vinyl"). Pick a name that signals the substrate group to estimators — banners and boards usually price differently even when produced on the same machine.
Display Name — leave the same as Name.
Category Type — choose Large Format. This switches the pricing model to area or linear-length math, exposes the pass-count inputs, and hides the commercial sheet-fed fields that do not apply (bleed grouping, ink coverage tiers, brand restrictions, grain constraint).
Calculation and imposition
Price Model — set to large_format_calc. This is the wide-format-specific calculation that prices by area, linear length, and ink passes rather than by parent sheet count. The model becomes available as a selectable option only when Category Type is Large Format.
Price Adjustment Model — pick Gross Profit% for the common wide-format case.
Bleed — default bleed in millimetres (e.g., 3 mm). Wide format applies bleed differently because the cut happens after print, but the field is still consumed by the route planner.
Flags
Allow Same Size Sheet — leave No. Wide-format jobs price by area, so the same-size economy path does not apply.
Mixed Production Enabled — leave No unless your wide-format line gangs multiple banners on a single roll pass.
Markups
Labor / Machine / Delivery / Outwork — default markup percentages (e.g., 20% each).
Ink passes — particular to large format
Min Passes — minimum number of ink-pass rounds the wide-format machine runs on each job (e.g., 1). One pass is typical for indoor display work where colour density is enough on a single hit.
Max Passes — maximum number of ink-pass rounds (e.g., 2). Outdoor or vinyl work often needs two passes for opacity, so Estimator should allow the operator or the route to step up to two.
Estimator picks the working pass count from this range based on the substrate group and the job spec. The wide-format machine carries its own per-substrate run-speed and ink-cost tables — those live on the machine editor, not the category.
Save the row. The Pending Changes count increments by one in the sidebar.
2. Define the part
Open Category Parts for the new category. Large-format products are a single part — one printed face on a continuous roll or rigid sheet.
Add one part row:
Name —
body(orbanner,board,vinyldepending on the substrate group).Production Steps — typically print → cut. Wide format ends at the cut step — a guillotine for rigid boards, a roll trimmer or shears for vinyl and banner cloth.
Tags — pair with the wide-format substrate group and the right machine (e.g.,
pvc-banner-440gsm,wide-format-roll). Estimator uses these tags to keep banners on the roll-fed machine and boards on the sheet-fed flatbed.
Save the part row. Pending Changes increments again.
3. Configure the quote inputs
Open Finish Sizes and Field Rules under Products.
Finish Sizes — wide-format estimating runs on Custom Size by default because every banner is a different dimension. Add a few standard sizes for high-volume SKUs (e.g., 800 × 2000 mm or 32 × 80 in for a pop-up banner, 1200 × 2400 mm or 48 × 96 in for a board display) and leave Custom Size enabled.
Field Rules — surface eyelets, pole pockets, hemming, lamination, and mounting as conditional inputs so estimators only see options that apply to this category.
A large-format category does not use Page Limits, Page Folds, or Page Colors — those are commercial sheet-fed inputs. Ink coverage and substrate grain do not apply either; the Large Format type hides those fields automatically.
4. Apply the changes
Open the Pending Changes panel in the sidebar and review the staged category, part, and quote inputs. Select Apply Changes to publish to live setup.
The Pending Changes count returns to zero, and the large-format category appears in the create-estimate product picker with area-based or linear-length pricing on the price breakdown.
Things to know
Min Passes and Max Passes appear only on Large Format categories. Estimator hides them on every other category type. If the inputs do not appear, the most common cause is that Category Type is set to something other than Large Format.
large_format_calc is the only price model that handles wide-format math. If you accidentally leave the price model on paper_calc, Estimator will try to derive a parent sheet that does not exist for roll-fed work, and the quote will fail to calculate.
If a banner quote routes to a sheet-fed press by mistake, the most common cause is that the tags on the part match a sheet-fed press as well as the wide-format machine. Tighten the tags so only the wide-format machine accepts this category — for example use
wide-format-onlyinstead ofdigital.