Method of printing onto variable-sized box substrates

A method of printing onto a planar box substrate used for assembling a box having predetermined box dimensions, said method comprising the steps of:

• determining box dimensions based on the planar box substrate, said box substrate having fold lines defining a plurality of box panels;
• retrieving generic instructions for image content to be printed on the box substrate, said generic instructions defining:
• (a) one or more image content regions for the box panels;
• (b) one or more design components for each image content region, each design component being independent of said box dimensions;
• and (c) a set of transformation rules associated with each design component, said transformation rules being dependent on at least one of:
• the image content regions and the box dimensions;
• preparing box-specific transformations using the generic instructions and the box dimensions;
• applying the box-specific transformations on the design components to generate image content portions commensurate with the image content regions, at least one of said transformations being selected from the group consisting of:
• positioning, rotating, scaling and cropping;
• generating image data based on the image content portions;
• and
• printing onto the box substrate using the image data.