Paper Wallet Generator

May 7th, 2007 | by Ryan Stewart |

ss05072007-212939.pngI’m proud to announce the newest edition to my ever growing collection of PDF generators - the Credit Card & Cash Carrying Paper Wallet. The inspiration for the project came from instructables member theRIAA who showed us all how to create a usable papercraft wallet in minutes.

I’ve been a user of the Jimi for well over a year and highly recommend it to those folks who are suffering from the Costanza wallet but don’t want to take the plunge to paper just yet. The reasons I’ve chosen paper over the Jimi are numerous . . .

  1. The paper version is about 1% the cost of the already inexpensive Jimi
  2. When it wears out, I just make a new one
  3. I can make notes on it - like emergency contact info, frequent flyer numbers, and inspirational quotes
  4. I can keep a photo of my family inside my paper wallet, because it is a part of my paper wallet
  5. My paper wallet is one-of-a-kind

I invite you to try it out and leave your feedback in the comments below. In the very near future, I’ll be adding the ability to print bar codes on any one of the four faces so you can store your frequent shopper cards and secret superhero codes on there too.

  1. 26 Responses to “Paper Wallet Generator”

  2. By Zadi on May 7, 2007 | Reply

    This is so awesome Ryan. Thanks! :)

  3. By Randy on May 8, 2007 | Reply

    Hey,

    That is is pretty cool! That could have easily won our wallet challenge. If you have any more great ideas hidden up your sleeve, you can possibly win a laser cutter in our new laser cutter contest.

    Sincerely,
    Randy
    (on behalf of the Instructables team)

  4. By Derrick on May 8, 2007 | Reply

    Thanks, Dude! You are super awesome.

  5. By Kevin Archibald on May 10, 2007 | Reply

    Dude that is so cool i’m going to kick my own face in.

    Actually i’m going to bring it to our youth group tonight and get all the kiddies to make wallets as crafts!! big ups!

  6. By Tom on May 11, 2007 | Reply

    Way cool!

    Two bugs, and a suggestion:

    Bug 1) Returns show up as small square boxes in Preview on Mac OS X.

    Bug 2) The web page doesn’t work well in Safari. Switching to text doesn’t pop up the text entry box and the Choose File buttons keep disappearing. (Not a real problem, I’ll just fire up FireFox.)

    Suggestion: The inner margins for the inside text boxes could be nudged a bit more back from the cut-outs. Of course, this may actually be a problem with Preview on the Mac.

  7. By Gavin on May 11, 2007 | Reply

    The generator needs to flip the inside pictures upside down for you so that they end up right-side up once folded. otherwise awesome.

  8. By Tom on May 11, 2007 | Reply

    Checked on a PC and things look fine. No boxes and the text doesn’t overlap the card cut-outs. So it’s some Mac-specific problem. Maybe a missing font?

  9. By FlatGreg on May 11, 2007 | Reply

    Same as Gavin’s comment - inside pictures/text need to be flipped upside down. Or maybe that’s personal preference? It could be made an option. Thanks though, I love it.

  10. By Jake on May 12, 2007 | Reply

    Brilliant. I am loading an image based budget table. what better place that on your wallet to track spending!

  11. By Ryan Stewart on May 12, 2007 | Reply

    Awesome Jake. That is a super idea! I’d love to see pics when you’re done. ryan at ryanstewart dot com
    -Ryan

  12. By Matthew Perks on May 12, 2007 | Reply

    Great concept but the left inside image keeps going on the right. Tried Firefox and IE; both the same.

  13. By Gaurav on May 14, 2007 | Reply

    I tried making the wallet with some text printed on the template. The outside text is readable while for the inside text i have to flip the wallet to read it. If the template can invert the text, then this problem might me solved…

    Anywayz i liked the idea! Gr8 work

    Gaurav

  14. By Will on May 15, 2007 | Reply

    I found the tabs go too far in - once folded I can’t put credit cards in. I just made it again with smaller tabs, but the dotted lines and stuff show now. Otherwise this is fantastic.

  15. By johnwin on May 15, 2007 | Reply

    This is great! One problem though - in both firefox and ie. My ‘inside left’ image does not appear in the pdf. However If I put text in there it does appearer. Strange.

  16. By Matt K on Jun 21, 2007 | Reply

    I too find this to be a great idea, almost done.
    If it were open source, we could go in, find the problems and fix ‘em. As it is, the wallet generator just sits out there, promising greatness and delivering something a bit shy of awesome. Thanks for the effort - could you maybe revisit the project?

  17. By A different Ryan on Jul 19, 2007 | Reply

    Maybe you could post your folding directions. Following the instructions at the link you provided gives me a wallet that is too small for credit cards (similar to what Will posted on 5/15) and the inside images are upside down (as noted by a few other posters). Very cool tool though, and like I said, maybe you should post your own directions in case some of us are doing it incorrectly.

  18. By V. Divecha on Jul 30, 2007 | Reply

    This is pretty neat. I did a review of it on my blogger.Wondering if you would want to link to it?
    Have a great day!

    I would note that the inside images are, as well, upside down. I uploaded upside down images, as a result, to go around that.

    If someone does not want to use this neat little form, I’d like to create .psd and .ai files for added convenience.

  19. By V. Divecha on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply

    Ryan,

    I appreciate the comment! The barcode feature is a great idea. I mentioned before that I would be able to create .psd templates, before I read that you were actually providing that for a fee. I just wanted to clear the air that I didn’t mean to impose. I would like to promote these ideas you’ve got, and if you could use some help, I’m your man!

    Cheers!

  20. By trellis on Aug 4, 2007 | Reply

    The pdf it creates is larger than 8.5×11 (and not proportionately). This causes adobe 8 to either make smaller, thus the lines are visible due to folds not being on the lines, or ask the printer for special sized paper.

  21. By V. Divecha on Aug 6, 2007 | Reply

    I updated my blogger for the new bar code feature.
    http://theartistspeaks.blogspot.com

    Thanks for this neat add on, Ryan!

  22. By V. Divecha on Aug 7, 2007 | Reply

    Trellis,

    I got away from the issue by having the image
    “fit to printer margins”. You’ll still come out with a standard US sized wallet that way. I’ve made about eight of these this way and they all came out well.

    One thing I would not suggest to everyone, as I was playing around with the idea: don’t use card stock or matte paper. The wallet’s too thick to fold and it won’t properly sit on a flat surface because of the thick indentations in along the crease in the fold.

    Hope that helps!
    Cheers

  23. By Matt K on Aug 8, 2007 | Reply

    I’ve talked with Ryan and he’s given me the source so that I can work on the bugs for the unrotated text and images. I’ll also probably adjust the cut and fold guidelines a tiny tweak.

    This requires a couple of changes to the underlying r&os ezpdf class, but I’m mostly done. Look forward to an improved wallet generator soon!

  24. By V. Divecha on Aug 9, 2007 | Reply

    Matt,

    What’s the r&os ezpdf class?

  25. By Matt K on Dec 31, 2007 | Reply

    r&os wrote a php class that ryan was using. It helps php make pdf easily.
    Unfortunately it didn’t rotate text easily. I fixed it on Ryan’s site and sent the developer a note.

    Ryan’s stuff works now! The inside images and text are properly flipped.

  26. By imrealldum on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply

    doesn’t work on mac safari, but works on Firefox…

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