Hallmark installed the software at its Hambledon Studios in Bradford, where 2.2bn cards are produced every year. The company's digital technology manager Vanessa Redshaw said it hopes to extend the technology to other sites.

"Card Create has now become a standard, and indeed essential, element of the card production process," Redshaw said.

The software, which is based on Adobe Acrobat, streamlines the whole process from design to end product, matching 8,000 designs with barcodes and pricing.

Mapsoft director Cathy Peters, who founded the firm with husband Michael 14 years ago, said Card Create was nine months in the making. "They've been using it for five or six months and it's working really well. It's definitely one of our bigger jobs," Peters said.