Creating a Print template with a Wizard
A Print template may consist of various parts, such as a covering letter and a policy. Start with one of the Template Wizards for the first part; other parts can be added later.
To create a Print template with a Template Wizard:
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In the Welcome screen that appears after startup:
- Choose Browse Template Wizards and scroll down until you see the Print Template wizards and select the Postcard or Formal Letter wizard.
- Or choose Create a New Template and select the PDF-based Print wizard.
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Alternatively, on the File menu, click New, expand the Template folder, and then: - Select the PDF-based Print wizard.
- Or expand the Basic Print templates folder, select Postcard or Formal Letter and click Next.
See Print Template Wizards for information about the various types of Template wizards.
- Make adjustments to the initial settings (the options for each type of template are listed below). Click Next to go to the next settings page if there is one.
- Click Finish to create the template.
See Print context and Print sections for more information about Print templates.
Use the Outline pane at the left to see which elements are present in the template and to select an element.
Use the Attributes pane at the right to see the current element's ID, class and some other properties.
Use the Styles pane next to the Attributes pane to see which styles are applied to the currently selected element.
Print Template Wizards
There are three Print Template wizards: one for a formal letter, one for a postcard and one for a Print template based on a PDF that you provide.
Postcard
The Postcard Wizard lets you choose a page size and two background images, one for the front and one for the back of the postcard.
When you click Finish, the Wizard creates:
- A Print context with one section in it, that has duplex printing (printing on both sides) enabled. See Printing on both sides.
- Two that each contain a background image. The first Master Page is applied to the front of every page in the Print section. The second Master Page is applied to the back of every page in the Print section. See Master Pages.
- Scripts and for variable data. The Scripts pane shows, for example, a script called "first_name". This script replaces the text "@first_name@" on the front of the postcard by the value of a field called "first_name" when you open a data set that has a field with that name. See Variable data.
- A script called Dynamic Front Image Sample. This script shows how to toggle the image on the front page dynamically. See also Writing your own scripts.
- One empty . Media, also called Virtual Stationery, can be applied to all pages in the Print section. See Media.
The Wizard opens the Print section, so that you can fill it with text and other elements; see Content elements. It already has two Positoned Boxes on it: one on the front, for text, and one on the back, for the address.
See Print context and Print sections for more information about Print templates.
Formal letter
The Formal Letter Wizard first lets you select the page settings, see Page settings: size, margins and bleed.
These settings are fairly self-explanatory, except perhaps these:
- Duplex means double-sided printing.
- The margins define where your text flow will go. The actual printable space on a page depends on your printer.
- The bleed is the printable space around a page. It can be used on some printers to ensure that no unprinted edges occur in the final trimmed document.
Printers that can’t print a bleed, will misinterpret this setting. Set the bleed to zero to avoid this.
- The number of sections is the number of parts in the Print context.
Although this Template wizard can add multiple Print sections to the Print context, it will only add content to the first section.
On the next settings page (click Next to go there), you can type a subject, the sender's name and the sender's title. These will appear in the letter. You can also:
- Click the Browse button to select a signature image. This image will appear above the sender's name and title.
- Select Virtual Stationery: a PDF file with the letterhead stationery. Also see Media.
When you click Finish, the Wizard creates:
- A Print context with one section in it; see Print context and Print sections.
- One empty Master Page. Master Pages are used for headers and footers, for images and other elements that have to appear on more than one page, and for special elements like tear-offs. See Master Pages.
- One Media. You can see this on the Resources pane: expand the Media folder. Media 1 is the Virtual Stationery that you have selected in the Wizard. It is applied to all pages in the Print section, as can be seen in the Sheet Configuration dialog. (To open this dialog, expand the Contexts folder on the Resources pane; expand the Print folder and right-click "Section 1"; then select Sheet Configuration.) See Media.
- Selectors for variable data, for example: @Recipient@. You will want to replace these by the names of fields in your data. See Variable data.
The Wizard opens the Print section. You can add text and other elements; see Content elements.
The formal letter template already has an address on it. The address lines are paragraphs, located in one cell in a table with the ID address-block-table. As the table has no borders, it is initially invisible. The address lines will stick to the bottom of that cell, even when the address has fewer lines. See Styling and formatting to learn how to style elements.
Click the Edges button on the toolbar to highlight borders of elements on the Design tab. The borders will not be visible on the Preview tab.
PDF-based Print template
The PDF-based Print template wizard creates a document from an existing PDF file: a brochure, voucher, letter, etc. The PDF is used as the background image of the Print section (see Using a PDF file as background image). Variable and personalized elements, like a reseller address, voucher codes and so on, can be added in front of it (see Personalizing Content and Variable data).
By default, the PDF itself is added to the Image folder located in the Resources pane. Uncheck the option Save with template if the PDF should not be imported in the template. If not saved with the template, the image will remain external.
Note that external images need to be available when the template is merged with a record set to generate output, and that their location should be accessible from the machine on which the template's output is produced. External images are updated (retrieved) at the time the output is generated.
After clicking Next, you can change the settings for the page. The initial page size and bleed area are taken from the selected PDF.
When you click Finish, the Wizard creates:
- A Print context with one section in it; see Print context and Print sections. The selected PDF is used as the background of the Print section; see Using a PDF file as background image. For each page in the PDF one page is created in the Print section.
- One empty Master Page. Master Pages are used for headers, footers, images and other elements that have to appear on more than one page, and for special elements like tear-offs. See Master Pages.
- One empty Media. Media, also called Virtual Stationery, can be applied to all pages in the Print section. See Media.
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