A compact one-piece folding carton
The net wraps four panels around the product, closes with top and bottom tuck flaps, and uses one side seam. It is efficient for lightweight items and can be cut from a single sheet when the dimensions allow.
From measurements to a usable template
- Enter the finished dimensions shown beside each field.
- Choose A4 or Letter paper and the closest material thickness.
- Inspect the cut, fold and glue lines in the live preview.
- Download PDF for printing, SVG for craft cutters or DXF for CAD.
Good uses for a tuck box
- Playing cards and flash cards
- Soap and cosmetics
- Small retail products
- Samples and promotional kits
Leave room for the product
Measure the widest point of the contents, including wrappers or instruction cards. Add a small handling allowance if the product must slide in and out repeatedly rather than fit tightly once.
Reviewed 25 August 2026
Measure the product before choosing a tuck box
Enter the finished width, height and depth of the item the carton must hold, not the flat sheet size. Measure the widest assembled stack, including a wrapper, instruction leaflet or inner bag. The interface calls these inner dimensions and accepts millimetres, centimetres or inches; conversion changes the numeric input, while the generated geometry remains millimetre based. Add only the handling room you can justify from a paper prototype.
- Width and height set the main front and back panels.
- Depth sets the side panels, the tuck-flap rule and the glue-tab rule.
- The material selector does not create a universal kerf or coating allowance for this template.
The one-piece tuck-box layout
The dieline wraps four panels around the product and adds top and bottom closure areas. The side glue tab is clamped from 8 to 18 mm using 35% of the requested depth. Each tuck flap starts at 90% of depth and is limited by the height rule, so a very shallow or very tall box will not keep growing proportionally. The top curved cut path is a cut detail in the drawing, not a printed fold line.
glue tab = clamp(0.35 × depth; 8; 18) mm; flap = clamp(0.9 × depth; 12; max(12; 0.48 × height)) mm
Follow the lines in the right order
Solid outer and flap paths are cut lines; straight panel boundaries and the two body boundaries are fold lines; the long vertical line at the side tab is the glue line. Cut the outline and the short cut segments around the flaps, score every fold, then wrap the four panels and glue the side tab. Close the top and bottom by inserting the tuck flaps. This is a straight tuck carton with no separate lid, snap lock or envelope window.
- Keep the curved flap cut clear so the closure can move.
- Score before folding coated card to reduce cracking.
- Test the closure with the actual product stack, not an empty carton.
Worked example: 70 × 110 × 28 mm
With width 70 mm, height 110 mm and depth 28 mm, the glue-tab calculation is 0.35 × 28 = 9.8 mm, so it remains 9.8 mm. The flap calculation is 0.9 × 28 = 25.2 mm, below 0.48 × 110 = 52.8 mm, so each flap is 25.2 mm. Before the normalization margin, the principal horizontal span is glue + 2 × depth + 2 × width = 9.8 + 56 + 140 = 205.8 mm and the body height is 2 × 25.2 + 110 = 160.4 mm.
total panel span = glue + 2d + 2w; total height = 2flap + h
Keep the tuck fit when printing
Select A4 or Letter and download the PDF, SVG or DXF that matches your next step. For a paper proof, print the PDF at 100%, Actual Size or No Scaling and measure its 50 mm calibration ruler; never use Fit to Page. A large net may be tiled over several sheets, so join the pages on their marks before transferring the cut and fold lines. In cutter software, preserve the millimetre scale and assign cut, fold and glue operations deliberately.
Mistakes that make a tuck box fail
A box that is too tight usually reflects an unmeasured wrapper, a missing handling allowance or print shrinkage. A box that will not close can come from a flap score being mistaken for a cut, or from folding the side tab in the wrong direction. ExactFold does not choose a board grade, cutting kerf, coating allowance or structural safety factor, and the material dropdown is not a dieline standard. Make a paper test, then adjust the input dimensions only after checking the actual product.