iPaperCraft.com - Custom Paper Covers for your iPod

December 5th, 2006 | by Ryan Stewart |

Inspired by flickr member Ape Lad and with the testing help of MAKE: Magazine readers, I created a php script using the ezPDF class that would generate PDF papercraft templates for any iPod model to date.

The iPaperCraft.com PDF generator lets you upload an image of your choice and it spits that image, along with fold and cutlines in PDF format.

image

Leave comments about iPaperCraft.com below. Please let me know how I can improve it. Enjoy!

  1. 22 Responses to “iPaperCraft.com - Custom Paper Covers for your iPod”

  2. By BDubs on Dec 21, 2006 | Reply

    Great idea, but the template doesn’t seem to fit for the new 5.5 Gen 80 Gig Video iPods. Any possibility of an update???

  3. By Ryan Stewart on Dec 23, 2006 | Reply

    Thanks BDubs. I’ll see if I can hunt down the dimensions of the 5.5 gen 80G video. In the mean time, if you want to be specific about the adjusments that need to be made, we can work it out that way.
    Thanks! Ryan

  4. By Chad on Jan 1, 2007 | Reply

    I just lost over an hour cropping, treating, and cutting a cover that I thought would wrap my 20 GB 4th generation iPod.

    It’s useless, however, as the resultant product’s dimensions are not even close to accurate. I don’t know where something could have gone wrong, but I also find it hard to believe that I’d be the first to discover this problem.

  5. By Ryan Stewart on Jan 1, 2007 | Reply

    Chad,
    Thanks for the comments. I’m sorry for the loss of your time.

    Unfortunately, I don’t have every iPod ever made so I was unable to test every model personally. I did, however, get the dimensions directly from apple ( http://developer.apple.com/hardwaredrivers/ipod/ ). In the last month, over 20k people have used the iPaperCraft Generator and about 5 have complained about poor fit.

    If you’re sure that your PDF viewer is not resizing the document, I’d encourage you to check your iPod’s dimensions against those that apple provided.

    I appreciate the feedback and will happily change the measurements if it turns out that apple’s are wrong.

  6. By Sven on Jan 5, 2007 | Reply

    Hey,

    I’ve tested your tool, but I can’t open the file.pdf I get from your site. The Adobe Reader on Ubuntu Linux says “drawing error”. I haven’t tried Windows yet.

    Kind regards.

    Sven

  7. By chloe on Jan 11, 2007 | Reply

    heyy,
    i luv all the skins
    there kwl

    toodles

    chloe

  8. By HTrance on Jan 16, 2007 | Reply

    Hey, nice idea. Just finished the generating proces and it looks good. When I find the time, I’ll send you a photo with the cover in use :)

  9. By Ryan on Jan 17, 2007 | Reply

    Just downloaded the PDF for the 30gb Video iPod. Mine too didnt fit quite right, so i printed a new one and “winged” it a bit. To those wasted their time trying to fit it. Think about the guy who wasted more than just an hour coming up with the program. give him a break. I LOVE MINE!!!

  10. By Laura on Feb 2, 2007 | Reply

    Love this generator! Great idea.

    I recently bought a new shuffle and would love to make a tiny paper cover for it. Might this be in the works?

    Thanks!

  11. By Bluk9t on Feb 22, 2007 | Reply

    This is a cool Idea. but I have a Ipod mini and it does not quite fit. Here are the pictures, maybe it will help to fix.

    one
    two
    three
    four

  12. By Kevin on Apr 11, 2007 | Reply

    I had the fit problem, too, until I went into Acrobat’s printer dialog box and changed the page scaling from “fit to printer margins” to “none”. Then the resulting image fit fine. You might want to mention this in the text on the actual pdf page.

  13. By Kevin on Apr 12, 2007 | Reply

    One request. I have a circle cutter that I could use for cutting out the holes, but in order to use it, I have to know where the center of the circle is. Is it possible for you to place a dot at the center of all of the circles on the patterns to assist in this type of cutting?

  14. By Kevin on Apr 26, 2007 | Reply

    Can you possibly also print centerpoints for the circles so that I can use my hole-cutter to cut them out? Thanks.

  15. By Ryan Stewart on Apr 28, 2007 | Reply

    Hi Kevin,
    I’ll do my best to get to it this weekend. Thanks for your patience.
    Ryan

  16. By CGingerich on Jun 27, 2007 | Reply

    I like the template. On addition I did was take an old paper CD holder and cut the clear plastic covering and use that over the screen and the click wheel. Helps with scratches and such. Might be a good addition as to putting it together.

  17. By Origami Junkie on Aug 15, 2007 | Reply

    hi i love the generator…but there’s a bit of a problem when i want to make a iPod nano 2nd generation cover, i go through all the steps and the cover doesn’t show up in the PDF file that opens, the picture for my cover i think is jpeg.

    :/ hmmm

    Ps: do iTunes have any origami podcasts?

  18. By rex on Nov 14, 2007 | Reply

    can u please make ojne 4 the ipod touch ty i really appreciate it

  19. By pelo on Dec 13, 2007 | Reply

    hey do you think you could make a template for the new ipod nano 3rd generation 8GB?? that would be rly nice…

  20. By John on Dec 23, 2007 | Reply

    Hi, i think that iPaperCraft is awonderful idea, but it would be good if you could add the iPod Nano 3rd generation!
    Good work!
    //John

  21. By Vianney on Jan 20, 2008 | Reply

    Great idea !! I use it on my nanoo first gen. . . …But will it be update to be compatible withe the shuffle 2nd generatioon ???

    thanks , vianney from paris

  22. By cody on Mar 18, 2008 | Reply

    the nano 1st gen one does not fit

  23. By Ryan Stewart on Mar 18, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks Cody, but I need more details than that if I’m to make any changes. The calculations are made based on Apple’s technical drawings for the various iPods. If it needs to be tweaked, the only way I know to tweak it is through the feedback I get from others.

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