Flexible Designs

Printess was designed with flexible document sizes in mind and it’s easy to create so called Flex Designs. Flex Designs are needed wherever documents need to change their size while keeping the design intact such as phone cases.

To test Flex Designs one can anytime change the document size by use of the gripper to the right and the bottom of each Page. This changes the size of all pages in a document.

Later, document size may be controlled by the DOCUMENT_SIZE form field (Read more about the DOCUMENT_SIZE form fields here)

So how are flexible documents built?

SubDocument Groups

A SubDocument Group is more than putting frames together. It builds one graphical block even that you and the Buyer can still edit the Properties and Form Fields values of the single frames the Group is made of. When you place the same SubDocument Group several times on the Page, Document or Template each single one could be edited on its own.

SubDocument Group Scaling

A SubDocument Group will behave like an image. It will scale proportionally even if you change only one dimension of the frame. That’s why it nearly fits into any aspect ratio if you place it into a page or document of a different size.

If you work with percentages rather than absolute values for the positioning and the size of the SubDocument Group it will automatically scale to the overall layout. The frame will always adjust its size and positioning in relation to the page size.
In this example the Focal Point of the frame is set to “upper left”. So the alignment of the elements within the frame is set to this point - no matter to which dimensions the frame itself is scaling.

Creating a SubDocument Group

If you have more than one frame selected you can use the Frame Context Menu to group all these frames.

If you like to edit the Group you don’t have to ungroup first. Instead you can open a separate view for editing. You got three different options to do so:

1. You can choose the option Open Group in the Frame Context Menu.

2. You can click the option Open Group in the Group Tab of the Feature Panel.

3. You can just double click on the Group Frame to open the view of the Edit Mode. Here you can access each single frame for editing. And you can add and remove elements.

After you have done the changes you can switch back to the Document by clicking on the option Back to Document.

Splitters

Splitters are the perfect basis for photo collage products. They allow the Buyer to scale and split frames. The Buyer can add and replace graphic elements without damaging the layout. This creates beautiful designs without the Buyer having any graphic skills.

To learn more about Splitters watch the video tutorial:

Creating a Splitter Grid

Learn more about the use of Layout Snippets here.

Go to the Frame Context Menu of an activated image frame to select the option Splitter -> Cut Horizontal or Splitter -> Cut Vertical.

You will get the following result:

1. The frame will be cut into two separate frames of the same size.
2. Printess automatically set the Buyer Side Frame Settings of both frames to Content and Splitter.
3. Printess automatically defined a gap between both frames.
4. A blue handle appears between the two frames to scale them like at the Buyer Side.

Now toggle to the Buyer Side to check the result. Congratulation! - you have created your first Splitter! Just load up some images and have a play.

Splitter Grid

Back at the Designer Side you find the Splitter Grid Settings at the Document Tab. They are only visible if no frame is selected:

1. Gap Size is changing the distance between the frames. You can scale it from “0” to “XL”.
2. Select Grid will automatically select all frames of the Grid at once.
3. Add Gap Around sets the outside borders of the Splitter Grid to the defined Gap Size of the frames.
   If there is already a “Gap Around” defined you find the option here instead.
   The Gap Around has to be deactivated if you place the Splitter Grid into a defined Bleed area. If placed in a Document as a Layout Snippet - the Splitter Grid will adapt the bleed of the Document.

Splitter Grid Scaling

Splitter Grids can deal with different dimensions of documents there will be placed on. They will scale automatically to the Document Size.

The Splitter Grid will dock to the Document edges if you move it close enough. A red aura will show you that the docking is active. The defined “Gap Around” is taken into account when docking.

Also the appearance of the Anchor Control will indicate if a docking is active.

Learn how to create Layout Snippets

Learn how to assign Layout Snippets to your Document

Using Splitters and Groups

Especially the combination of Groups together with Splitters makes complex resizing tasks fairly easy. Let’s have a look: click to open sample document

This photo-product design - let’s call it Player - uses 3 images frames set to Splitter plus two Groups. One is called Head and the other is called Player.

Both Groups are placed on the primary document. The advantage is that the inside layout gets not destroyed if the aspect ratio of the Group Frames are changing. Plus the buyer still can edit all the Properties of the frames the Groups are made of.

The good thing is, that Splitter-grids doesn’t have be symmetrical. So the 3 images do not stretch to the page border, but the Head and the Player Groups do.

If you don’t like the Head and Player to extend to the bleed area, click Add Gap Around in the Context-Menu Splitter with all frames selected.

You can play around with this template in your own account. You’ll find it as Resizable Player in the Design Tutorials section of the New Template Dialog.

To see how it resizes, you have to toggle to the Buyer Side. Here you can simply click the circles beneath the aspect ratio range symbols:

Using Frame Anchors and Percent Units

There are several elements which make up a Flex Design:

• The Reference Point Control which let you choose the point that should be defined by the coordinates.
• The Anchor control which defines the edges the frame is referenced to.
• The Units. Besides standard units (inch, cm, mm) one can also use relative coordinates (%, %% and <%) which are especially useful for Flex Designs.
• Last but not least one can react to size changes of Multi Line Auto-Sized Frames by using Styles.

Please also read the chapter on frame position and sizing.

Here are some examples:

First, let’s see an example using the Anchor control. We will create a background rectangle which should be in the bleed by 3mm on all edges, even if the document size changes. Here we can use the Anchor control and anchor the Frame on all 4 edges. Then one just needs to set the position for Left, Top, Right and Bottom to -3mm to position the bleed 3mm outside the documents page.

Here is an example making heavy use of %, %% and <% values:

This document can get changed in size. Have a look what happens if we drastically change the size of the document.

This is the same document but changed to a portrait-like size. For better understanding the position settings for each Frame are shown:

The dotted line will stay in the middle of the document and always goes from top to bottom. This was achieved by setting the anchor points to the top, left and bottom and setting its Left position to 50%.

The bar to the right has a fixed width of 1cm, its reference point was set to right and its Right position was set to 0cm and is anchored to the top, right and bottom. This makes sure it always goes from top to bottom and extends 1 cm into the document.

The triangle is anchored to the bottom right and has a width of 20% of the document width. Because its Height is set to 20%% it will use the width of the document as reference while letting the Frame expand and contract on the document base width only.

The circle in the middle has its reference point set to center and uses a position of 50% Left and 50% Top to always stay in the center. The Width and the Height are set to 40<%. This will either correspond to 40% of the width of the document or 40% of the height of the document, whatever is smaller.

Auto-Size Text

Another useful Flex Feature is automatically moving Frames below a Multi Line text frame set to vertical Auto Frame Size mode, below built-in Multi Line text frames. Simply Group the Multi Line Text with the Frame below and when the Text is edited and expanded the Frame will adjust accordingly.

Using Styles to Flex

Styles are another way of implementing Flex Designs. In this business card example, one can enter a fax number, thus expanding the used Multi Line Text. This will then move the pink bar on the bottom down. Additionally, if the job title spreads over two lines the bar disappears completely to make room for the text.

This example was created using Named Frames and a Style assigned to the bar.

Start by giving the auto sized Multi Line text frame the JS Name ‘main’. Click here to see how to give Frames a JS Name.. Then create yourself a Style ‘.box’ like below and assign it to the pink bar.

.box {   
 	visible: ${frame.main.bottom < 180 }; 
 	top: ${frame.main.bottom + 20}px 
}

This will set the top of the pink bar to the bottom edge + 20px. As one can see ‘px’ was added after the literal ${…}. This is because frame.main.bottom just returns the pixel coordinates without any unit to allow for arithmetic operations. That’s why we need to add px after the curly bracket, to make it a valid value for a position.

The other function this Style serves is that if the bottom of the Multi Line Text gets below 180px the visible property will become false - making the pink bar invisible.

Reacting on DOCUMENT_SIZE

A good example on how to use Styles to react on the DOCUMENT_SIZE form field is the Printess example calendar. In this example we use conditional Styles to move Frames for different designs.