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Not every layer in a template is meant to be personalized. Your shop name, a fixed border, a legal line: those should stay exactly as you drew them. The customer’s name and photo should not. Customer permissions is where you draw that line, one layer at a time.

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Where to find it

Select a layer and scroll the right-hand panel to Customer permissions. Which toggles you see depends on the kind of layer you selected.
The template editor with the text layer #16 Kid's Name selected in the Layers list. The right-hand panel shows Content, Text Style, Font Options and Text Colors, with the Customer permissions section highlighted near the bottom and its Allow customer to edit checkbox ticked.

The text layer Kid's Name is selected, and Customer permissions is highlighted at the bottom of the right-hand panel. Allow customer to edit is ticked, so shoppers can type their own words here.

If a layer has no Customer permissions section at all, it is not a layer a shopper can interact with. Background art and decorative shapes are always fixed.

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The same label means two different things

Allow customer to edit appears on both text and image layers, but it does not grant the same thing. That difference matters. Ticking it on a text layer is what turns it into a fill-in-the-blank. Ticking it on an image layer does not let anyone swap the picture, it only lets them nudge and turn the one that is already there.
The template editor with the picture layer #13 Short Hair selected in the Layers list. The right-hand panel shows Image Options with five hair choices, and the highlighted Customer permissions section below it has an unticked Allow customer to edit checkbox.

The same section on the picture layer Short Hair. Here the toggle controls moving and rotating, and it starts switched off.

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Letting customers upload their own photo

Layers built as a photo placeholder get a second toggle, Allow customer to upload image, and it starts switched on. That is the whole point of a placeholder: the shopper puts their own picture into the frame. Pair the two toggles to control how much freedom they get:
  • Upload on, edit off. The customer supplies the photo and you decide exactly how it sits. Predictable, and the safest choice for print.
  • Upload on, edit on. The customer supplies the photo and can move and rotate it to frame it themselves. Better for pet portraits and family photos, where only the customer knows which part matters.
Letting customers move their own artwork means some of them will move it badly, and the print file follows what they did. If your product has an area that must stay clear, leave editing off and position the photo yourself.

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Other layers that can be personalized

Calendars, QR codes, maps, word clouds, and word searches also carry an Allow customer to edit toggle. On those it works like text: switch it on and the shopper can change what the layer is built from, such as the date on a calendar or the location on a map.

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A rule of thumb

Go through your template before you publish and ask one question of each layer: should a stranger be able to change this?
  • Their name, their date, their photo: yes.
  • Your logo, your border, your product’s fixed wording: no.
A layer left editable by accident is one of the easier ways to receive an order you cannot fulfil. It costs a minute to walk the layer list and check.

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Where to next

Text content and style

Make sure any name a customer types still fits.

Connect an option set

Turn an editable layer into a field on your product page.

Show or hide options

Only ask for what is relevant to the customer’s choices.

Assign products and go live

Put the template on a product page.