Text fields & personalization

Date fields add the shipping date, today's date or a fixed date to your text. They are identical for all recipients and already available in Basic.

Text fields contain static text and, when needed, variables. Variables are placeholders that PostPal fills with real values per recipient during printing.

Typical variables:

• First name / salutation for a personal address.
• Company name for B2B recipients.
• Individual voucher code - connects personalization directly with attribution.
• QR code with a trackable target link.

You place variables and QR codes in the Design Editor. They may hang over the card edge, but anything outside the finished card area is trimmed off — the Design Editor shows that cut while you design. Whatever should be read or scanned belongs fully on the card. Deutsche Post reserved areas (address, franking, coding) are different: you may place elements there, the Design Editor points it out at the top, you can still save, and we check every design before sending.

In the Design Editor, choose Text and then Text field. Your uploaded design remains unchanged; the text field sits above it. A new text field immediately selects all of “Text hinzufügen”, so you can start typing to replace it. This does not apply to API Markdown. Double-click an existing text field to edit it directly on the postcard. Type known placeholders such as {{first_name}}, or use Insert variable in the right sidebar.

Use the right sidebar to also adjust a text field's or variable's font, size, line height, letter spacing, alignment, color and opacity.

Individual words in bold or italic: In a text field you are editing, select the words to highlight and press Ctrl+B for bold or Ctrl+I for italic; on a Mac, use Cmd+B and Cmd+I. Pressing the keys again removes the styling. If only part of the selection is bold, the first press makes the whole selection bold. Without a selection the keys have no effect. A placeholder such as {{first_name}} is styled as a whole. Line wrapping keeps each word's styling. The keys only work when the font has a bold or italic face; for fonts without that face, such as your own uploaded fonts, they have no effect. If you switch the font to one without a bold face, the bold styling of individual words is removed.

Individual words in another font: In a text field you are editing, select the words and choose a font under Typography in the right sidebar. The choices are the editor's system fonts and this design's own fonts. The word prints in that font, even if the text field has another font. Bold and italic then apply in that font, where it has the face.

Resize the text area: Drag a side handle to set only the width and the automatic line wrap. Drag a corner handle to set both width and height. Without a dragged handle, the text field remains content-sized and adjusts itself automatically.

For a quick personal greeting, choose Greeting in the Design Editor's left sidebar. You can pick Hallo {{first_name}},, Guten Tag {{salutation}} {{last_name}}, or a custom greeting. These templates are inserted as text fields and remain fully editable.

For an individual voucher code, choose Gutschein-Code (Voucher code) in the Design Editor's left sidebar. The voucher selection opens: pick the voucher and click Platzieren. The element is then placed on the card and shows a sample code; the layer list labels it Gutschein 1 together with the voucher's name, and that is also where you change the assignment. Double-click the element to add text, recipient placeholders and date fields directly before or after the individual code. The code remains part of that same voucher element. A fixed code for every recipient is simply a text field — it needs no voucher element. With our voucher feature, you can create a unique code for each recipient. When creating the voucher, set a prefix of up to four characters, for example VIP. It is completed with six additional characters, resulting in a code such as VIPXPXQT3. Imported voucher codes can differ.

Showing the same voucher more than once: copy the element, or simply place the voucher a second time. All elements of one voucher share one variable: they are all labelled Gutschein 1 and show the same sample code. That is not a mistake but exactly what gets printed — each recipient receives a single code for that voucher, and it appears in every one of those spots. Only a second, different voucher becomes Gutschein 2 and brings a code of its own.

If you change the voucher on one element while several elements carry that same voucher, the Design Editor asks first: should the new voucher apply to all of them, or only to the selected one? In the second case that single element becomes Gutschein 2 and the others stay as they are.

Voucher configuration belongs to the design: the voucher-code element binds the selected voucher to the relevant design variant. During printing, PostPal fills the element with an individual code for each recipient. Vouchers are no longer selected separately in the campaign form.