Have you tried printing some CD covers downloaded from the Internet but the result was horrible? Did the covers come out much larger or much smaller than they should? Do their proportions seem off? Don’t worry, give me a couple of minutes of your time and I’ll tell you how to solve the problem.
As you can easily guess, you don’t have to be a computer expert or a great artist to print CD covers correctly: all you need are good quality covers – I’ll tell you where to get them in a moment – and above all a good software that creates guidelines to print and cut the covers in a precise way.
Where can they be downloaded? How much do they cost? How are they used? Everything is explained below. Anyway, don’t worry, you can find covers for any kind of CDs and print them without spending a penny… unless you want to voluntarily support the development of one of the applications you will use (this kind of gesture is always fair to developers who do their work brilliantly) or upgrade to the paid version (when available).
If you haven’t yet found a reliable site from which to download covers for your CDs, let me recommend a couple of them “on the fly”. One is CD Covers that offers the possibility for Internet users to access a very large database of covers for all kinds of multimedia content, the other is AllCDCovers that has its own database and provides covers at higher resolution (often complete with back cover and scan of the diskette).
On both sites, in order to find a cover just use the appropriate search bar. You don’t need any registration or authentication through social networks and moreover the download is totally free. For more info, see my tutorial on how to download CD covers.
You’ll find the resources you need listed right below. There are resources for both Windows and Mac and there is also a special web service available that allows you to do everything directly and conveniently from any browser window.
UnderCover10 (Windows)
If you’re using a Windows PC, don’t think twice and rely on UnderCover10, an excellent free and portable application – which therefore doesn’t require installation in order to work – thanks to which you can print the covers of CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray, video games and even old VHS with disarming ease.
To download the portable version of UnderCover10 to your PC, go to the program’s website and click on the Download Latest Version button located under UnderCover10 Portable version. Then open the ZIP package you have downloaded, extract the content into any folder, launch the UnderCover10.exe executable and click Run.
In the window that opens, click the white arrow at the bottom left to access the main screen of the program and select the item CD front cover from the drop-down menu at the bottom right. Then drag the image of the front cover into the white space located above the drop-down menu, click the Print button and proceed with the printing process.
Once you are done with the operation, select the item CD back from the drop-down menu at the bottom right, drag the image of the back cover in the white space and click the Print button to print the back of your cover. At the moment it is not possible to print more than one cover on a single sheet (at least not automatically).
If the front cover format you downloaded is not the standard one but has an inner part to be folded, select CD front with blank inside or CD front + inside instead of CD front from the Undercover10 drop-down menu.
If you want to access the program’s settings to disable or re-enable automatic orientation correction, to choose whether or not to leave active the function that draws borders around the cover, etc., click the Options button that is always located on the main screen of the software.
Disc Cover (Mac)
There aren’t many free applications for printing CD covers on a Mac anymore. Among the few “survivors” is Disc Cover. It’s a paid program that can be used in a free trial version (the one I used to write this step) that is perfectly capable of fulfilling the purpose in question. It offers many options for customizing the covers and integrates many templates from which you can eventually choose.
To use it, go to the program’s website and click on the Get Free Trial button to start downloading the free trial version of Disc Cover.
When the download is complete, api the DiscCover.dmg package you just got and drag the app icon inside it to your macOS Applications folder. Right-click on it and choose Open twice in a row to bypass Apple’s restrictions on unauthorized developers.
Now that you see the program’s window on your desktop, click on the New Blank button at the bottom left corner of the window and then click on the Edit Element menu located on the Project Element bar of the program, choose CD and then Cover.
Then drag the image you want to use as the cover in the workspace of the software and click the button with the printer in the upper right corner to proceed with the printing. Repeat the operation with the back cover and you’re done.
If necessary, before proceeding with the printing process, you can modify the format of the cover by clicking the Change template… button at the bottom of the Disc Cover Project Element bar and by choosing the options you prefer from the window that appears. If you want to modify dimensions and margins, use the options you can find in the appropriate fields.
Always before proceeding with the printing, you can also further customize your covers by applying text at will, inserting geometric shapes etc.. To do this, click on the buttons at the top left of the window.
If you want to insert other images from the program’s database, select the ones you are interested in from the left part of the Disc Cover window and drag them onto the cover. You can also select different image categories using the menu at the top of the page.
PrintDVDCover.com (Online)
If you don’t feel like downloading new programs to your PC, you can use PrintDVDCover.com, an online service that lets you create print templates for CD covers directly from your browser. How does it work? Nothing could be easier, believe me.
After logging in to the site’s home page, all you have to do is select the CD Jewel case item from the Select your layout drop-down menu, click on the Browse/Choose File button located under the Select the front of cd-case (120 mm x 120 mm) heading and select the CD front cover.
Then click the Browse/Choose File button under the heading Select the back (inlay) of cd-case: (151 mm x 118 mm), select the back cover of the CD and click on, place a check mark next to the Smart resize and crop images to fit preserving aspect ratio more info item (to perfectly fit the size of the selected images to the CD cover format) and click the Generate PDF button.
Now, choose whether or not to include borders in your print job and whether to print or print fold lines by leaving or unchecking the boxes next to Printer border and Print fold lines. If you want your cover to be automatically resized and cropped to fit the aspect ratio, check the box next to Smart resize and crop images to fit preserving aspect ratio.
Now, choose whether or not to include borders in your print job and whether to print or print fold lines by leaving or unchecking the boxes next to Printer border and Print fold lines. If you want your cover to be automatically resized and cropped to fit the aspect ratio, check the box next to Smart resize and crop images to fit preserving aspect ratio.
If the format of the front cover you downloaded is not the standard one because it has an inner part to be folded, from the PrintDVDCover.com drop-down menu you must select CD Jewel case (folded front) instead of CD Jewel case.
Canva (Online)
If you like the idea of doing everything via Web and you are looking for a valid alternative to the above mentioned service I can’t help but suggest you to try Canva. It’s a famous online service thanks to which it’s possible to realize many graphic works, including CD covers. It’s free (but some functions are paid), very easy to use and the final results are definitely noteworthy. However, it should be kept in mind that to use it you need to register an account.
To make and print CD covers with Canva, you must first connect to the home page of the service and click on one of the options located in the box First time on Canva? Sign up! box, to indicate the reason why you want to use Canva, and register using your email address, your Facebook account or your Google account, by clicking on the corresponding button and then filling out the registration form that appears on the screen.
Once you have registered and logged in to the service, type cd cover in the search bar at the top and select the relevant suggestion from the list that appears.
Now that you see the Canva editor, click on the Uploads item on the left, click on Upload an image and select from your computer the image of the front side of the cover. Then drag it onto the blank sheet attached to the editor.
Now click on the Add a new page button at the bottom right and repeat the procedure above to create and upload the back cover of your CD.
If you want to make further customizations to your cover, use the functions and tools you can access from the toolbar on the left. For example, you can add text, additional images, geometrical elements, and so on. Other adjustments to the images and to the selected elements can be made by using the special items you can see appearing on the top right after selecting the reference element.
Once you have completed the changes, download to your computer the cover you have made by clicking the down-arrow button at the top right and select, from the menu that opens, the format in which to save the final file, then click Download.
Once the download is complete, you will be able to print the CD cover by opening the resulting file and giving the command to print it as you usually do with the program used to view that particular type of file. If you want to speed up this step, you can select the cover file and use the Ctrl+P shortcut (if you are using Windows) or the cmd+p shortcut (if you are using macOS) to proceed directly to printing.