Use this article when a substrate already exists in your Paper Library but it is not appearing as an option on a quote — usually because the product part has not been told which substrates it is allowed to pick. After this you will have a product category whose parts each restrict substrate selection to the right slice of the library, and GelatoConnect Estimator's route selection will only offer those substrates on quotes for the category.

Before you begin

The substrate exists in Substrates and has been applied through Pending Changes (Add or edit a substrate).
The product category exists under Products → Categories, with the parts the product needs (Cover, Inner, Insert, and so on).
You know how the part should choose paper — by an exact substrate, by weight and coat, by brand, or by a tag match.
Required role: MIS Admin (see Estimator permissions reference).

Steps

1. Open the product category

Open Estimate Setup and select Products → Categories. The categories table lists every product category your shop quotes against — Stitched Book, PUR Softback Books, Folded Leaflets, Leaflets & Flyers (un-folded), Banner, and the others your shop has configured.

Select the category you want to restrict — for the example below, this is Stitched Book. The category editor opens.

2. Open Category Parts

Inside the category editor, select Category Parts. The parts panel lists every part that belongs to the category — for Stitched Book the parts are Cover and Inner; categories with insert pages add Insert to that list.

Each part row has its own substrate-rules block. The block is what tells GelatoConnect Estimator which slice of the Paper Library the part is allowed to choose from on a quote. An empty rules block means "any substrate"; adding rules narrows the slice.

3. Configure the allowed substrates on each part

For each part, set the rules that match the substrates the part should be quoted on. The rule fields are:

Weight range — minimum and maximum weight in gsm (metric) or pounds basis weight (imperial). A Cover row that should never quote on paper lighter than 115 gsm sets the minimum to 115; a row that should never quote on board sets the maximum to 250.
Coat — restrict to a single coat (Silk, Gloss, Uncoated, Recycled) or leave blank to allow any. Use this when the product brief calls for a specific finish.
Brand — restrict to one or more merchant or paper-mill names. Use this when the customer or the product spec calls out paper by brand. See How brands work with substrates.
Tags — match a tag the substrate row also carries. Tags are how shops express compatibility that does not fit cleanly into the other fields (for example, "digital-only", "house-stock", "FSC-required").
Specific substrate — pin the part to exactly one library row when the part is truly single-substrate.

Set the rules tight enough to keep wrong paper off the quote, but loose enough that the engine has at least one substrate to pick from at the weights and sheet sizes the product actually orders.

4. Save and apply the changes

Select Save at the bottom of the category editor. The editor closes and the Pending Changes counter in the sidebar increments by one for each part you changed. Saving stages the edits; quotes calculated right now still use the previous rules.

Open Pending Changes from the sidebar, review the part rows that list the rules you set, and select Apply Changes. The counter returns to zero and the new rules are live for every quote the shop calculates.

5. Validate with a test quote

Create a quote against the category you edited. Choose realistic specifications — a quantity, a finished size, and any options the category requires.

On the quote, open the substrate picker for the part you restricted. Confirm that only the substrates matching the rules are offered, and that GelatoConnect Estimator can still calculate the quote with one of those substrates selected. Open the price breakdown and check that the Substrate Cost line uses the row you expected.

Example: configuring a stitched book on Northgate Press

We'll restrict the substrate rules on Northgate Press' Stitched Book category so the Cover and Inner parts each only quote on the right slice of the Paper Library.

Spec:

Category: Stitched Book
Cover part rule: weight 115–170 gsm, coat Silk (the cover must be Silk 115gsm SRA1 or heavier)
Inner part rule: weight 80–115 gsm, coat Silk (the inner takes the lighter Silk papers)
Test quote: 500 copies, A4 portrait, 32 pages of Inner stitched into a Cover

Walking the steps with these values:

Step 1 result: Products → Categories shows the Stitched Book category. Opening it loads the category editor.
Step 2 result: Category Parts shows two part rows — Cover and Inner. Both currently have empty substrate-rules blocks, which means the category accepts any substrate in the library.
Step 3 result: On the Cover row, the weight minimum is set to 115 and the maximum to 170; the coat is set to Silk. On the Inner row, the weight minimum is set to 80 and the maximum to 115; the coat is set to Silk. The library rows that match Cover are Silk 115gsm SRA1, Silk 130gsm SRA1, Silk 150gsm SRA1, and Silk 170gsm SRA1; the rows that match Inner are Silk 80gsm SRA1, Silk 100gsm SRA1, and Silk 115gsm SRA1.
Step 4 result: Save stages both changes. Pending Changes shows two entries — one per part row. Apply Changes clears them.
Step 5 result: On the test quote, the Cover substrate picker lists only the four matching Silk rows in the 115–170 gsm band; the Inner picker lists only the three matching Silk rows in the 80–115 gsm band. With Silk 130gsm SRA1 selected for Cover and Silk 100gsm SRA1 for Inner, the quote calculates and the price breakdown shows a Substrate Cost line for each part driven by the per-ton cost on the matching row.

What success looks like

The category editor shows the rules you set on each part row, and the Pending Changes counter returns to zero after Apply Changes.
On a test quote, the substrate picker for the restricted part only lists the substrates that match the rules.
The route GelatoConnect Estimator selects on the quote uses one of those substrates, and the Substrate Cost line on the price breakdown reflects the per-ton cost on the row.

Things to know

A substrate that exists in the Paper Library is still unusable on a quote until the product part allows it. The library is the catalogue; the part rules are the gate.
Empty rules mean "any substrate from the library". Saving an empty rules block does not restrict anything — it widens. Set rules only when you actually want to restrict.
If the route selection on a quote returns no available substrate even though the rules look right, check whether any substrate matching the rules can run on the presses the category allows. A substrate that matches the part rules but is too heavy for every configured press drops out of the route, and the quote appears to have no substrate. See Why a substrate is missing from a quote.
Brand and tag rules are AND-combined with weight and coat rules. Adding a brand restriction on a part that already has a weight range narrows the slice further, not separately.