How to Make Numbered Raffle Tickets (Print-Ready PDF) — 2026 Guide

Design a single ticket with a stub, add an automatic sequential number to both the ticket and its stub using a variable data tool, lay the numbered tickets out 8–10 per sheet with cut-and-stack imposition (so each cut pile is already in numerical order), then print, cut and perforate. The whole job — design to print-ready PDF — takes about ten minutes in a browser and costs nothing to try.

The two parts people get wrong are the numbering (typing 500 numbers into Word, or wrestling Excel mail merge) and the cutting order (cutting a normally-arranged sheet gives you piles numbered 1, 51, 101… that must be hand-collated). This guide fixes both properly.

• Two matching numbers — one on the ticket the buyer keeps, one on the stub you keep. They must be identical on every ticket, and unique across the run.
• A perforation line between ticket and stub so the stub tears off cleanly at the draw.
• Buyer details on the stub — name and phone lines, so you can contact the winner.
• The essentials on the ticket face: event name, draw date/time/place, prize(s), price, and any license number your local rules require.
• A sensible size: the common standard is roughly 5.5 × 2 in (140 × 50 mm) including a ~2 in stub — 10 fit comfortably on a Letter/A4 sheet in two columns.

A quick compliance note: raffles are regulated in most places (registration, license numbers on tickets, age limits). Rules vary by US state, UK local authority, Canadian province and Australian state — check yours before selling a single ticket. The printing workflow below is the same everywhere.

Design exactly one ticket at final size in any tool you like — Canva, Affinity, Illustrator, even PowerPoint — and export it as a single-page PDF. Leave two clear spaces for the number: one on the ticket face, one on the stub. Don't type any number; that's automated next.

Design tips that save trouble at the cutter:

• Keep text 5 mm (0.2 in) away from every edge — guillotine cuts wander a millimetre or two.
• Mark the perforation position with a subtle dashed line and a small scissors icon.
• Avoid edge-to-edge color unless you'll add bleed; a white border looks intentional and cuts clean.

This is where variable data printing replaces an evening of typing. In PDF Press:

1. Load your one-page ticket PDF.
2. Add a sequential number field on the ticket face — set the start (e.g. 001), the count (e.g. 500), and padding (001, 002 … 500).
3. Add a second field with the same sequence positioned on the stub — ticket and stub now always match.
4. Optional upgrades: a QR code or barcode encoding the ticket number for scan-at-the-door verification, or a prefix per ticket book (A-001…A-100, B-001…).

The result is a 500-page PDF — one numbered ticket per page — generated in seconds. No CSV required for a plain number sequence; if you do have a spreadsheet (pre-sold tickets with names), merge it the same way.

Now place those 500 numbered pages onto sheets. The naive layout — 1–10 on sheet one, 11–20 on sheet two — means after cutting you hold ten piles in scrambled order and must hand-collate 500 tickets back into sequence.

Cut-and-stack imposition arranges the numbers so that after you cut the printed stack, each pile is already in perfect numerical order — pile one is tickets 1–50, pile two is 51–100, and so on. Stack the piles and the job is collated by physics. For 500 tickets at 10-up, that's 50 sheets and five minutes at the cutter instead of an hour of sorting.

Settings in the tool: choose Cut & Stack, 2 columns × 5 rows on Letter/A4, and add cut marks between tickets. The preview shows exactly which number lands where — sanity-check that ticket 1 and ticket 2 are in the same position on consecutive sheets, not side by side.

• Paper: 250–300 gsm (90–110 lb cover) card stock feels like a real ticket; 160 gsm is the acceptable minimum. Single-sided printing keeps it simple.
• Print at 100% scale — never "fit to page," which shifts the cut positions.
• Cut: a rotary trimmer or guillotine along the cut marks, keeping each pile stacked as it comes off the cutter.
• Perforate: a desktop perforating blade for a rotary trimmer costs little and gives a clean tear line between ticket and stub; a tracing wheel from a sewing kit works for small runs. Print shops will perforate a pre-printed stack cheaply if you ask.
• Book them (optional): pad tickets into books of 10–20 with a staple through a margin, or padding compound along the edge.

For school fairs, club fundraisers and church events — where the run is a few hundred tickets and the deadline is Saturday — the DIY route wins on speed and cost. For 5,000+ tickets with machine perforation, generate the same numbered, imposed PDF and hand it to a local print shop: you'll skip their design fee and keep full control of the artwork. More production detail in our numbered ticket printing guide.