The software giant appears to be taking on the likes of Canva and Gelato with the new offering, described as an “open ecosystem print strategy”.

Aubrey Cattell, Adobe VP developer platform and partner ecosystem said: “Our vision is to make it easy for Adobe Express users to create any print product they can dream of, ordered and delivered anywhere in the world by a network of print providers with any print option they can imagine.

“We are also opening the doors wide for our partners, empowering them to connect with millions of new users and provide their own customers with seamless access to Adobe’s industry-leading creative technologies in an easy-to-use app.”

The initial print partners are US-based Zazzle, Pixels.com, and Silicon Publishing.

Zazzle supplies a huge range of products including cards and invitations, gifts such as mugs and clothing, and accessories.

Pixels.com specialises in art-based products including prints, apparel and tech accessories.

Silicon Publishing’s tools include Print Reddy, which “brings high quality print to Adobe Express”.

Adobe said that any print provider could join the Adobe Express add-on marketplace to scale their reach, “meeting marketers, communicators and small business owners where they create”.

It said developers could create custom workflows that would “target specific customer pain points” using APIs and the Adobe Express Embed SDK (Software Developer Kit) JavaScript library, which allows third parties to embed Adobe Express editing capabilities into other websites.

Announcing the new print capabilities, Adobe also outlined what it was looking for from print partners in terms of use cases, including: enterprise-specific needs (such as integrations to support preferred supplier relationships); geography-specific print needs; and particular bespoke/niche use cases “especially B2B”.

One established web-to-print boss was lukewarm about the move and described it as “print management style… another opportunity for printers to work for 30% value-added”.

Another pointed to the recent Adobe controversy over the inclusion of Pantone colours in Creative Cloud, and said: “Oh, so they’re all about dropping Pantones etc but when it comes to printing t-shirts they’re all in, eh?”

Editor's note: Subsequent to the initial announcement, Cattell told Printweek it had no immediate plans to charge or take a commission on add-ons such as links to print providers.