How do I stop it adding a second line of text?

Use the official phrasing: "Include ONLY this card text (verbatim):" and then the quoted string. Bounding the quantity is the part most prompts miss.

How long can the greeting be?

One short line is reliable. Beyond that, generate the artwork with clear space and set the type in an editor.

What does the premise sentence actually do?

It gives the model a reason for the scene. That propagates into wear, light, framing and emptiness — dozens of small decisions you would otherwise have to write out.

Can I use it for other occasions?

Yes. Replace the scene, the mood words and the quoted line and the structure holds. The four-block shape — Scene, Mood, Style, Constraints — is the reusable part.

GPT Image 2.5 prompt — a holiday card with verbatim card text

"Include ONLY this card text (verbatim)" — the clearest text instruction in the official guide.

A worn teddy bear in a keepsake box beside a snowy window, with the line Merry Christmas some memories never fade

Settings the Design a card with the greeting spelled exactly right prompt ran at
Mode	Model	Quality	Size	Ratio	Credits
Text to Image	Think	Standard	1K	2:3	6 cr

Published by OpenAI as an example for this model — not generated on this site. Model: gpt-image-2.5-sunburst. Source: OpenAI The published example ran at 1024x1536, a legal size we do not currently offer; the frame here is the same shape at our nearest size.

A worn teddy bear in a keepsake box by a snowy window, carrying the line "Merry Christmas — some memories never fade." Two things make it work: the scene is written as an emotional premise rather than a list of objects, and the card text is fenced off with a phrasing that leaves the model no room to add a second line.

In full

The prompt, nothing cut

Create a Christmas holiday card illustration.

Scene:
a cozy Christmas scene with an old teddy bear sitting inside a keepsake box, slightly worn fur, soft stitching repairs, placed near a window with falling snow outside. The scene suggests the child has grown up, but the memories remain.

Mood:
Warm, nostalgic, gentle, emotional.

Style:
Premium holiday card photography, soft cinematic lighting,
realistic textures, shallow depth of field,
tasteful bokeh lights, high print-quality composition.

Constraints:
- Original artwork only
- No trademarks
- No watermarks
- No logos

Include ONLY this card text (verbatim):
"Merry Christmas — some memories never fade."

666 characters

Run it here

This exact prompt, at these exact settings

The mode and all five settings are locked to this template, so there is nothing to line up by hand. Press Run this prompt above and the panel opens filled in — prompt, mode, quality, size and frame — and your first image needs no account. If your plan sits below what this ran at, the line under the panel says so.

This example was published at Think · Standard · 1K. A free run is Fast · Standard · 1K, so expect less fine detail and softer small text. The composition is the same; the finish is not.

3 levers

What is safe to change

Most libraries publish this list and stop, which is why so many copied prompts come back worse than the original: the swappable nouns are the safe half. The three sections under it are the other half — the clauses that are doing the work, the ones that break it if you touch them, and why it is written in this order.

The premise sentence
"The scene suggests the child has grown up, but the memories remain." One sentence of subtext, and it changes how everything else is rendered — how worn the bear is, how the light falls, how empty the room reads. Swap the premise and keep the props.
The verbatim fence
"Include ONLY this card text (verbatim):" followed by a quoted line. The capitalised ONLY and the parenthetical are both doing work. This is the strongest text instruction anywhere in the official guide and it transfers to any layout carrying one string.
The wear details
"Slightly worn fur, soft stitching repairs". Damage is what makes an object read as loved rather than as merchandise. Every sentimental object prompt wants a version of this.

Three ways to break it

Each one is a real failure with a reason attached. A rule without a reason is not usable.

01Naming a real character or brand
The constraint block bans trademarks for a reason. A named character turns a card you can print into one you cannot, and the model will happily produce it.
02Writing a long greeting
One short line renders reliably. A verse does not — and on a card, one malformed letter is the whole product. Keep the string short or add the words after.
03Stacking more sentiment words on top
"Warm, nostalgic, gentle, emotional" is already at the limit. Past four, mood adjectives stop adding direction and start pushing toward generic greeting-card stock, which is the look the premise sentence was working to escape.

Why it is written this way

Inside the Design a card with the greeting spelled exactly right prompt

The construction worth studying here is the last block, because it is the clearest solution in the official guide to a problem everyone hits. "Include ONLY this card text (verbatim):" followed by the quoted string. Three separate signals are stacked in one short instruction: ONLY in capitals bounds the quantity, "verbatim" bounds the wording, and the quotation marks mark the string. Any one of them alone leaks. Together they are about as reliable as text rendering gets on this model.

The leak they prevent is specific and common. Greeting cards in any training corpus almost always carry more than one line — a headline and a sentiment, or a greeting and a small line inside. So a model producing "a Christmas card" will tend to supply the second line, invented, in a smaller face somewhere in the composition. It is not making a mistake; it is completing the genre. Bounding the quantity explicitly is what stops it.

The other half of the template is the premise sentence, and it is the reason this card is not generic. "The scene suggests the child has grown up, but the memories remain" describes nothing visible. There is no instruction in it. But it reframes every object that was listed before it — the bear becomes an artefact rather than a toy, the keepsake box becomes storage rather than packaging, the window becomes distance rather than weather. A model reads the whole prompt, and a stated subtext propagates into a hundred small rendering decisions you would otherwise have to specify one at a time.

Compare the version without it: an old teddy bear in a box by a snowy window, warm and nostalgic. You would get a nice image of a teddy bear in a box. You would not get the one where the room is slightly too quiet.

The wear details do the same thing at object level. "Slightly worn fur, soft stitching repairs" is four words that separate a loved object from a product photograph of a bear. Anything sentimental needs its equivalent — the chip in the mug, the crease in the photograph, the tape on the box.

On the constraints: keep them. Holiday imagery is exactly where a model reaches for recognisable characters, and a card with somebody else's bear on it is not a card you can print.

4 questions

Design a card with the greeting spelled exactly right — common questions

How do I stop it adding a second line of text?: Use the official phrasing: "Include ONLY this card text (verbatim):" and then the quoted string. Bounding the quantity is the part most prompts miss.
How long can the greeting be?: One short line is reliable. Beyond that, generate the artwork with clear space and set the type in an editor.
What does the premise sentence actually do?: It gives the model a reason for the scene. That propagates into wear, light, framing and emptiness — dozens of small decisions you would otherwise have to write out.
Can I use it for other occasions?: Yes. Replace the scene, the mood words and the quoted line and the structure holds. The four-block shape — Scene, Mood, Style, Constraints — is the reusable part.