Chapter 2. Cover Page Editor

Understanding How to Use the Cover Page Editor

The Cover Page Editor is one of the best new features available in World Fax v6.2 and above. It allows you to customize the information that is delivered to each recipient. This customized data can be the person's name, their company address, their account balance, etc. -- whatever you want to include. The documents you create do not actually have to be used as “cover pages”. Any document you want to customize or personalize can be created in the Cover Page Editor. You can even have more than one "cover page" in your job as long as it uses the same fax list.

There are three main steps to creating and using a cover page template:

After the job is submitted, the World Fax Server program pulls the information from your fax list and merges it into the cover page template file so that each person receives a fax that is personalized.

How this Section is Organized

Since the Cover Page Editor (CPE) has a lot of powerful features, the first step in learning is to get familiar with the tools that are available and how to access them in the main screen. Therefore, the first part of this section describes in detail the menus, toolbars, objects and properties that you’ll see in using the CPE. Use this section as an overview at first, then come back to it later to use as a reference.

After this initial tour, the discussion provides some “hands-on” examples of using the CPE. You can follow along step-by-step in learning some different ways to use the CPE to get results.

Screen Areas of the Cover Page Editor

 

Screen Area -- The Menu Bar

The Menu Bar has five menu items that allow you to create and manage your custom document templates.

File Menu “New” creates a new blank template “Open...” opens an existing template (.cpt) file “Save” saves the file with the extension ".cpt" (i.e. cover page template) “Save as ...” allows you to save the current template file with a new name “Print ...” prints the page to the printer you've specified “Print Preview” allows you to preview the page before printing “Print Setup...” lets you change the target printer Most Recently Used Files (this is empty at first until you've created a few files) “Exit” exits the Cover Page Editor

Edit Menu

Undo - not implemented yet
Cut - not implemented yet
Copy - copies the selected object into memory (the "clipboard")
Paste - inserts the contents of the "clipboard" into the template

View Menu

Toolbar - turns display of toolbar off or on
Status bar - turns display of status bar off or on

 

Image Menu

Inverse - for the selected image, the black and white areas become reversed
Set Original Size - returns the selected graphic to it's original size

Help Menu

About CPE...

Screen Area -- The Top Toolbar

The toolbar uses buttons as shortcuts to the commands on the menus

Using the File management buttons:

The default is for the Cover Page Editor to start with a blank page. Like any other application, after you create a few items, save the work you have done so far.

Using the Cut, Copy & Paste Editing Features:

The main way of getting graphics into the Cover Page Editor is via the Paste command. Simply load your application that has the graphics that you want, then copy the desired graphic. Switch to the Cover Page Editor and select the Paste command. Your graphic will appear in a box. You can resize the image and set other properties such as background fill. You can also cut & paste text into your template.

Using the Front/Back Layer Feature:

When you are working with multiple objects such as graphics -- you may find there is some overlap of the objects. The background for one object may block the graphics from another obect. Using the front/back layer feature allows you to control which objects are "on top".

Alignment is primarily used when you have the grid feature turned off (if the grid is turned on, the objects will normally already be aligned). When the grid off, objects may be slightly out of adjustment. The alignment buttons allow you to match the left, top, right or bottom sides of the selected objects. There are two ways to select the objects you want to align:

1) Use the mouse to draw a big rectangle completely around the objects.
2) Click the first object you want, then while holding down the Ctrl key, click the second object you want.

Once you have the objects selected, click the desired alignment button.

Grid - Turns the grid off or on.

Using the Grid:

The grid is used to align objects on the page. The grid size settings are found in the Properties Tab. Select the "Document:CoverPage" entry from the Property List box (click on the down arrow to see all of the elements). You will see two entries relating to the grid settings - one called Grid Height and Grid Width. The default for both of these settings is 32 pixels. If you turn the grid off, then you can fine tune the locations of your objects by dragging them around.

Screen Area -- The Side Toolbar

	- Pointer - allows mouse to be used for selecting objects
	- Image - allows you to insert a graphic image
	- Label - allows you to insert a label element
	- DataField - allows you to insert a data field
	- Template - allows you to insert a template field for paragraphs.
	- Frame - allows you to draw a frame
	- Clipart - allows you to insert clipart files

Pointer Button

Clicking on this button or dropping an object onto the document activates "pointer" mode. This allows the mouse to be used for selecting (highlighting) any "objects" on the page. An object can be an image, a text field, a database field, or any of the other items you can place on the page. If one or more objects overlap, you can switch through the objects by repeatedly clicking on the selected object, passing the focus to the object under it. The selected object is surrounded by a green border.

Dropping Objects

1) Click on one of the six (6) object buttons.
2) Click down on the document where you want the top left corner of the object to be.
3) Drag the mouse to where the bottom-right corner should be.
4) Release the mouse button.

Managing Selected Objects

A selected object can be Copied (right-click->Copy, Ctrl+C, the Copy button, or the Edit menu), Deleted (Del), edited, moved, or resized. To edit the properties of a selected object double-click on any of the listed attributes in the Properties tab on the right hand side of the screen. To move the object, click down on any part of the green border that doesn't have a green box on it, drag the outline to the new location and release the mouse button. Resizing is the same except that you click on one of the boxes on the border and then drag.

Note: Objects whose border is outside of the document will have a red border instead of green.

Hint: Resizing and moving may also be achieved by editing the Height, Left, Top, and Width properties in the Properties tab.

Hint: Hold down the Ctrl key to select multiple objects. Just be aware that using the Ctrl key will cause all stacked objects to be selected. Alternatively you may select multiple objects by using the Pointer to drag an outline around them. Primarily this feature is used to move objects as a group and maintain their relative spacing. While multiple objects are selected it is only possible to modify four (4) properties: Height, Left, Top, and Width.

Hint: To resize an object while maintaining its aspect ratio, hold down the Ctrl key while resizing and be sure to drag the bottom-right border box to resize.

Properties Tab

The Properties tab contains a list of customizable attributes for the selected object. Each attribute is editable by double-clicking the attribute name, then changing the contained value in the pop-up window that will appear.

Hint: It is possible to select an object by picking its name in the drop-box at the top of the Properties tab. To make it easier to identify an object in this manner it is recommended that a unique and descriptive name is assigned to each object (double-click the "Name" property).

Hint: The entire document is considered to be an object and its properties may also be modified (its default Name is "CoverPage").

Properties Common to All Droppable Objects

Height: the distance (in pixels) between the top of the object and the bottom of the object
Left: the distance from the left side of the page to the left side of the object
Name: the name (not necessarily unique) used to identify the object in the drop-box (ex. OBJECTTYPE:Name)
Top: the distance from the top of the page to the top of the object
Width: the distance between the top of the object and the bottom of the object

Image Button

Is used to display .bmp or .rle (Windows encoding only as opposed to Compuserve encoding) image files. After dropping the object, double-click the "File Name" property in the Properties tab to select the image you wish to be displayed.

Hint: If you have an image in another format that you want to display on the fax you can import it by opening the image in an appropriate viewer, copying this image to the clipboard (consult your software documentation for the proper method of doing this), and Pasting (right-click->Paste, Ctrl+V, the Paste button, or the Edit menu) it onto the document.

Hint: It is possible to use a document from a program such as Microsoft Word as your background "image":

1) Print the single-page document to World Fax. (You can have multiple overlayed documents if you wish to send a multi-page overlayed fax.)
2) View the created .tif file with the viewer we supply.
3) Copy the image to the clipboard.
4) Paste the image into the Cover Page Editor. It will take up the entire page if you printed it as the same paper size as the coverpage is set to be. If you have already dropped other objects you will want to put in the background. This can be achieved by selecting the image and pressing the "Send to Back" button.

Hint: To resize an image while maintaining its aspect ratio, hold down the Ctrl key while resizing and be sure to drag the bottom-right border box to resize.

Hint: If you wish to restore the image to its original size, go to the Image menu and choose "Set Orginal Size."

Hint: To invert the image, go to the Image menu and choose "Inverse."

Label Button
Used for displaying static text on your document.

Hint: Ctrl+Enter will create a carraige return while editing the "Caption" property.

Relevant Properties:
Alignment: Choose whether the text is right/left/center justified.
Background Mode: Choose whether the background is transparent or opaque.
Caption: The text that will appear on the document.
Color: Black on white or white on black. White on black needs to have the Background Mode set to Opaque.
Font Bold: Whether the text is bold or not.
Font Italic: Whether the text is italicized or not.
Font Name: What font should be used.
Font Size: What size the text should be.
Underline: Whether the text is underlined or not.

Datafield Button
Displays the value of the specified field for the current record in the phonebook.

Hint: To see what the merged document will look like in the end it is possible to select a phonebook and view on-screen what the result will be. Do this by editing the Test FaxList property in the CoverPaue object. You may then cycle through the phonebook using the navigation buttons in the lower left corner of the screen.

 

Relevant Properties (See Label Button for more):
DB Field: What field from the phonebook will be inserted at this point.

Template Button

Displays the value of the specified field for the current record in the phonebook, but seamlessly added between other text.

Hint: This allows for variable length fields to be inserted as if they were always on the source document.

Relevant Properties (See Label Button for more):

Template: Is a combination of the Caption property used for Labels and the DB Field property used for Datafields. Type the static text that is to be displayed and then insert the appropriate fields where desired.

Frame Button
Used to create simple borders that can be rectangles or ovals.

Example:

 

Relevant Properties:

Line Width: The width of the border line.
Radius: If Rounded Corners is set to Yes, this property controls the degree of roundness of the border. The Radius is the radius of the individual corners, not the entire border. To make a perfect circle, choose a Radius equal to half the height.
Rounded Corners: Whether or not the frame will have rounded corners.

Clipart Button
Used to insert clipart in the Windows Metafile Format (*.wmf).

Relevant Properties:
File Name: The name of the clipart file to be displayed.
Transparent: Chooses whether the white background of the picture is transparent or not.

Screen Area -- The Property Tab The Property Tab allows you to set the properties for whichever object is selected in the workspace. The “Document:CoverPage” object holds the general properties of the template as described below Document:CoverPage Grid Height: (32) Grid Width: (32) Name: (CoverPage) Page Length: (5) If User Defined is selected for Page Size Page Size: (Letter) Legal | A4 | User Defined Test Fax List: Allows you to specify a fax list for previewing the data fields

Screen Area y -- The Record Toolbar

This toolbar is located at the bottom left corner of the screen.

After connecting to a test fax list, you can preview the results of your data merged into the template. Use the following buttons to navigate through the records in your faxlist.

	Brings you to the first record in your faxlist
	Brings you to the previous record in your faxlist
	Brings you to the next record in your faxlist
	Brings you to the last record in your faxlist