PrintShop Mail Web Designer Guide
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Table of contents 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 1 2 PrintShop Mail user interface........................................................................................................................................................................... 2 3 Publication settings....................................................
1 Introduction Welcome to PrintShop Mail Web, the easy-to-use, powerful, and open web-to-print system. PrintShop Mail Web is a Web-to-Print solution that allows print providers and brand owners to effectively manage promotional print flows, streamline customer interaction, and combines the benefits of Variable Information (VI) with OnDemand Printing. PrintShop Mail PrintShop Mail allows to prepare and add template documents to PrintShop Mail Web.
2 PrintShop Mail user interface Here a global overview of the PrintShop Mail graphical user interface (GUI). • Tools toolbar: This toolbar allows you to insert (variable) text and images, rotate items and insert PDF files. • Layout toolbar: This toolbar allows you to skip to the different layouts. • Database toolbar: This toolbar allows you to browse the records and gives a preview of the variables used in PrintShop Mail. • Layout window: Gives a preview of the current layout.
3 Publication settings When publishing documents to PrintShop Web, it is important to check the following: • Windows Printer Settings • PrintShop Mail Publication Settings Objectif Lune Inc.
3.1 Windows Printer Settings To print documents correctly it is important that the printer set in the PrintShop Mail document matches the printers available on the PrintShop Mail Web server. Check the following: • Printer name • Verify the PPD version 3.1.1 Printer name The printer name should match. PrintShop Mail Web verifies if the printer specified in the document is available on the web server. If the printer is not available, the default printer will be used for that document.
3.2 PrintShop Mail Publication Settings In order to publish documents to the PrintShop Mail Web server it is required to adjust the settings in PrintShop Mail. To change these settings open the Preferences dialog of the PrintShop Mail (Edit menu). Select the PrintShop Mail Web pane on the left side of the Preferences dialog. Change the settings for the URL, Login and Password. Contact the Administrator of the PrintShop Mail Web server for the correct settings.
4 Business Cards A business card is one of the cost-effective marketing tools a business can have. With PrintShop Mail you can create business cards in a minute, print them or publish them to PrintShop Mail Web. Publishing to PrintShop Mail Web is a great advantage. Clients can fill in their names and order business cards anytime, anywhere.
4.1 The Business Card document Start the PrintShop Mail application. Open the job Business Card.psmd in the Business Card folder. The business card document consists of one layout with crop marks. The document contains various variables and the background image is a PDF file. The business card document Objectif Lune Inc.
4.2 Variable Text Text objects in PrintShop Mail can contain both static and variable text. Variables are surrounded by the @ character. Click in the Variable Pane of the Properties window to view the variables for this document. Variables and Data Fields When creating variables in PrintShop Mail, the variables will be shown in the Variables pane. To let customers input data in PrintShop Mail Web a Data Field should be created.
4.3 Expressions To create a Data Field an expression so should be created for one or multiple variables. Each variable in the business card document has an expression and a result. By double clicking a variable the expression builder will appear. The expression builder Enter the name of the variable or a custom value and place this between square brackets. The expression automatically creates a Data Field. Objectif Lune Inc.
4.4 Data Field properties Select the Data Fields pane. By selecting a Data Field, you can view and edit its properties in the Properties panel. The Data Field properties let you change the following items: • Default Value: this value will be initial value that the end user will be see in PrintShop Web • Remarks: the information in this field will add a comment to the PrintShop Mail Web user input form. You can use this to give clients a hint about the information that need to be entered for this field.
4.5 Crop marks and Repetition settings PrintShop Mail has the ability to print crop marks and print multiple layouts (in this case business cards) on a paper. These settings can be found in the PrintShop Mail preferences. Repetition settings in PrintShop Mail Crop marks To print crop marks around a layout, select Imposition in the Preferences dialog (Edit menu) Repetition The settings in the Repetition panel allows you to print multiple layouts on a page.
4.6 Print the job You may want to verify the output before publishing the document to PrintShop Web. Select Print in the File menu to output the document to a printer. Objectif Lune Inc.
4.7 Publish to PrintShop Web Upload the job to PrintShop Web. Before continuing be sure that you have read the instructions in the chapter How to Publish templates from PrintShop Mail in the PrintShop Mail manual. A business card example Select Publish to Web in the File menu and follow the instructions on-screen. In the Publish to Web dialog create a new publication type and click Next. Follow the instructionson-screen to publish the document. Objectif Lune Inc.
4.8 The online document After publishing the template document your customers can start creating jobs using the PrintShop Mail Web web site. Open a browser, for instance Internet Explorer and enter the URL of your PrintShop Mail Web web site. Login, navigate to the New Document section and select the Business Card document. The user input form appears showing three input fields. Change the values of these fields and click Preview to update the thumbnail and view your changes.
5 Postcards A travel agent wants to inform existing customers that they offer short vacations. They decide to send each customer a personalized postcard, based on their vacation interest last year. The interests of the customers are divided in: • a family vacation • a cultural vacation • an active vacation A business card example The interest of the customers are stored in a database. That database is going to be used to personalize the cards, with text and an appropriate image.
5.1 Ingredients Creating a variable document is like cooking. To create an excellent meal you need the right ingredients and proper equipment. Without it, the outcome is unpredictable. First we will explain which ingredients are needed for creating this variable data example: • a database with customers names, addresses, interests etc. • a PDF file which holds all the layouts for the postcards The travel agency wants to send the customers a postcard based on their interest.
5.2 Layouts To continue you need to start PrintShop Mail. Locate the Postcards folder and open the Postcards.psmd document. This document contains 4 layouts using a PDF background image.
5.3 Layout conditions To print layouts, based on the customers interest, we use a Layout Condition. Layout Condition can skip, print or leave pages blank during the printing process. In this case we have to tell each layout, based on the customer interest, if it should be printed or not (skipped). A postcard sample Select Layout 1 in the Layout pane on the right hand side of the PrintShop Mail window. The layout shows the Family image.
Postcards - Layout conditions Setting up a condition To change the layout condition select the layout in the Layouts pane and click the Action value in the Properties pane. This will open the Expression builder showing the expression for the selected layout. The layout condition in the expression builder Below an overview of the layout conditions used in the postcard document.
Postcards - Layout conditions Layout 3: IF(CONTAINS([Interest], “Cultural”), Print, Skip) If the database field Interest contains the text Cultural, it will print. If it does not contain the text Cultural it will not print. Layout 4: Print This layout will print all the records. It will print on the reverse side, as the document will be printed duplex. Objectif Lune Inc.
5.4 Repetition on page PrintShop Mail can print multiple layouts on a paper that has a larger format than the size of a layout. The layout in this job has the size of the PDF and depending on the paper source of the printer driver you can determine how many times it should repeat on a page. The amount of repetition can be selected in the Repetition pane of the Preferences window (Edit menu). Repetition settings Changing the paper size, will also change the maximum amount of repetitions.
5.5 Printing the document You may want to verify the output before publishing the document to PrintShop Mail Web. Select Print in the File menu to output the document to a printer. Make sure your printer supports duplex printing. Postcard output Objectif Lune Inc.
5.6 Publish the document Before continuing be sure that you follow the instructions in the chapter How to Publish to PrintShop Mail Web in the PrintShop Mail manual. From PrintShop Mail select Publish to PrintShop Mail Web in the File menu and follow the online instruction. Publish the job to the Marketing publication type. Select the Marketing publication type Objectif Lune Inc.
5.7 PrintShop Mail Web Open a browser, for instance Internet Explorer and enter the URL of your PrintShop Mail Web web site. Login, navigate to the New Document section and select the Postcard document. In this case the document requires you to upload a database file. Click Browse and select the Postcard.xls database file. After uploading the file you can browse the records and update the preview. Click Next to complete the ordering process. The postcard document in PrintShop Mail Web Objectif Lune Inc.
6 Newsletters A travel agency sends out a newsletter to their existing customers. The newsletter contains variable images based on the customer vacation preferences. The newsletter also offers a customer a 5% discount if they register on the Travel Agency website. This letter contains multiple variable elements like: • • • • variable customers (from a database) automatic date variable images based on a customer interest variable travel agent The newsletter sample Objectif Lune Inc.
Newsletters - PrintShop Mail Web In the next pages you will learn how to: • Create an automatic date • Create variable images based on someone’s interest • To upload this to PrintShop Mail Web server This newsletter is a combination of variable data from a database and input fields. It has also variable images based on a customer holiday interest. Objectif Lune Inc.
6.1 Variable elements Start PrintShop Mail and open the Newsletter.psmd file located in the Newsletter folder (Examples folder). The newsletter layout The document contains variable text elements (bold font style) and a variable image. Select the text box to get an overview of the variable text elements. The variable text elements Objectif Lune Inc.
Newsletters - Variable elements These variables also appear in the Properties panel (select Variables option). In this chapter we will explain how to create a: • Variable date • Create input fields, which can be altered in PrintShop Mail Web • Variable images The Variables pane showing the variables for the Newsletter document Objectif Lune Inc.
6.2 Variable date Double click on the variable Date in the Variables pane, the expression builder will be opened. The expression builder shows the Today function. This function will return the current date, based on the system time. For example if today is 27 August 2006 it will return that date on screen. Click OK to leave the expression builder. The Today functions returns the current date The Properties pane shows the formatting for the Date variable.
6.3 Input Fields In the Newsletter document we created two user input fields: • the Name Travel Agentvariable • the Position Agent variable Double clicking the variable Name Travel Agent will open the expression builder. Between the brackets you will see the variable: [Name Agent] This variable does not come from a database, but was typed in. Click OK to close the expression builder window. Select Data Fields in the Properties window, and you can change it properties.
6.4 Variable images The Newsletter document contains a variable image. Based on the customers interest a specific photo is printed. This document makes use of four different images: • • • • Paris Barcelona Amsterdam Sydney As stated the images are printed by the holiday preferences of a customer. When a customer visited Paris, a picture of Paris will be printed. When he visited Sydney, a picture of Sydney is printed. The information comes from the database field Location.
Newsletters - Variable images Note: If you are using images that are based upon conditions, and these conditions determine that the image should not be displayed (empty file name as result), a notification will be included in the preflight data for each empty image. The notification displayed is this No image specified. In order to avoid this you may want to use a transparent image as alternative for the empty file name. The Image folder option in the Properties pane Objectif Lune Inc.
6.5 Print the newsletter You may want to verify the output before publishing the document to PrintShop Web. Select Print in the File menu to output the document to a printer. The newsletter output Objectif Lune Inc.
6.6 Publish to PrintShop Mail Web Choose Publish to Web from the File menu, the Publish to Web dialog appears. Select a Publication type and click Next. In the dialog that appears you will need to add the variable images. Select the folder containing the image in the Browse for Variable Images section and click Add. The names of the images will be added to the Add variable images section. Click Next to proceed. Select the Images folder to add the variable images Objectif Lune Inc.
6.7 PrintShop Mail Web Open a browser, for instance Internet Explorer and enter the URL of your PrintShop Mail Web web site. Login, navigate to the New Document section and select the Newsletter document. In this case the document requires you to enter data manually (user input) and to upload a database file. First you'll need to enter information in the user input web form. Click Next and upload the Newsletter.xsl database file.
7 Creating a custom Watermark With the introduction of PrinShop Mail 6.0 you can specifiy objects as non printable. These items will only be shown in the JPG previews and PDF softproofs of PrintShop Mail Web. Non printable objects can be used to create custom watermarks and emulate preprinted paper or specific paper types. Objectif Lune Inc.
7.1 Non Printable Objects Placing a watermark on your documents will discourage people from copying them, claiming them as their own. In PrintShop Mail you can set the non printable property to any kind of object. Here's a simple way to add a custom watermark to your documents: 1. Launch PrintShop Mail and open the Newsletter.psmd file located in the Newsletter folder (Examples folder). 2. Select the Image File option in the Insert menu. The Select Image File dialog appears. 3.
Creating a custom Watermark - Non Printable Objects The Convert to Two Colors option set to Yes 7. Now set the Background Color to Transparant and change the Foreground Color to one of the available colors. This will apply the selected color to the black pixels of the image. The image converted to a Two Color image Now you're all set and ready to publish the document to PrintShop Mail Web. Objectif Lune Inc.
8 How to Continue Now you completed this guide you might want to learn more about PrintShop Mail and/or PrintShop Mail Web. To serve the world wide variable data needs, we work with a global network of partners, local distributors and support departments. Check the following website for more information: • www.objectiflune.com Objectif Lune Inc.
