The combination of artificial skin substitutes and epidermis grafts has been regarded as a promising therapeutic strategy for severe skin injury. Herein, a novel dermal substitute scaffold was manufactured with sodium alginate/gelatin composite material via extrusion freeforming technique and the appropriate printing parameters were investigated. In addition, several strategies of crosslinking process were applied to the scaffolds. Then Fourier transform infrared analysis, SEM observation, uniaxial compression test, dynamic degradation experiment and characterization of deformation were conducted to study the influence of crosslinking processes. Experimental results indicated that a three-stage crosslinking process can make dermal substitute scaffolds with physicochemical properties that match with human skin tissue and satisfy requirements of skin tissue engineering. Finally, the cell proliferation result also confirms that the scaffolds have benign biocompatibility. This study presents a new potential approach, combining the three-dimensional bioprinting with mature crosslinking process, to make bioactive dermal substitute scaffold. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 58:1782-1790, 2018. (c) 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers