Object Toolbar

The object toolbar contains icons/buttons for the most important tools and commands. You can apply these tools to an object selected in the product editor, or to insert a new object into the product editor.

Tip:
You can also bring up many of the tools my right clicking on your desired object in the product editor. 

If you hover the mouse above an icon in the toolbar, a tooltip will appear describing the tool.

As there is insufficient space to display all the tools in the toolbar at many resolutions (computer screen sizes), some of the tools in the toolbar are grouped. Groups are identifiable by a "" symbol next to the button in the toolbar; pressing it displays the hidden tools, which you can then select.

 

Tools for creating new layout objects

New image

Creates a layout frame for an image in a layout; you can then insert a photo using the "Images" object browser.

You can change the position, size, rotation, and order of the layout frame.

When you create a new layout frame, and have previously selected a layout frame in the product editor, the new layout frame assumes the same size as the selected frame.
This gives you a convenient and simple approach to inserting multiple layout frames of the same size into the product editor.

See the chapter "Working with Layouts".

New text

Creates a text field in the layout; you can then fill the text field with your own texts and change the format of the text.


 

Editing tools

The editing tools are grouped below "Edit...".

Undo 

Undoes your last action.
(Only available if an action was performed previously.)

Redo 

Redoes the last command that you undid.
That is, it undoes the last "Undo" command.
(Only available if an "Undo" action was performed previously.)

Cut 

Copies the selected object or objects to the clipboard and removes the original / originals.

Copy

Copies the selected object or objects to the clipboard and keeps the original / originals.

Paste 

Inserts objects from the clipboard into the editor workspace.

Delete 

Deletes the selected object or multiple selected objects.



Layout tools

Downloading images and texts off the Internet

You can use a keyword search to find images on locr.com, or Wikipedia GeoNames to download and use on your product. These images often contain geo-data (longitude/latitude), as a geographical orientation aid. locr.com also has an advanced search function that lets you specify the latitude and longitude to find images from a specific area. Descriptions (texts) for the images and locations are also available.

Enabling / disabling automatic layout change on inserting or deleting images

When you add a new layout frame to a product page, or remove a layout frame from a page, the software automatically applies the next stored layout that matches the number of images to ensure best possible distribution of layout frames. If no matching layout is available, the software will display a message to this effect.
You can toggle this behavior on and off by pressing this button.

Use next matching layout

If another stored layout with the same number of images is available, the software will use this layout when you press this button. This gives you the option of trying out the existing layouts to find out which you prefer.
This does not take text fields into consideration; existing text fields will be deleted!

Save layout

After customizing a layout, or creating a new layout, you can save the layout before applying it to other pages.
The layout then appears in the layout object browser, and is tagged with an asterisk.

Grid 

This displays a non-printable grid to help you position elements within your layout. Layout frames snap to the grid intersections.

You can set the grid size in the "Options" section of the header below "Editor".

Configure page numbers...

This is only available for photo books.

Check "Display page numbers" to enable or disable the page number display.

General

Set the first page on which to display page numbers. If you want to use the first page to create a table of contents for your photo book, you will not need to enable page numbering until the next (the second) page.

The following page number formats are available:
Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3, ...)
Small Roman numbers (i, ii, iii, ...)
Large Roman numbers (I, II, III, ...)
Small letters (a, b, c, ...) and
Capital letters (A, B, C, ...).

The text for page number defaults to "Page %".
The percent sign is a placeholder for the page number and must not be deleted; you can define the rest of the text freely.

"Page %" results in "Page 1", "Page 2", "Page 3", etc.

"- % -" results in "-1 -", "- 2 -", "- 3 -", etc.

and "Photo book Page %, Jill and Paul’s Wedding" results in "Photo book Page 1, Jill and Paul’s Wedding", "Photo book Page 2, Jill and Paul’s Wedding", etc. .

You can set the gap between the page number and the margin to between 1 and 10 mm.

Positioning

The following settings apply to the positioning of page numbers on pages:

Page 1

Page 1


Page 1

Page 1


Page 1

Page 1

Inside top
 


Top centered


Outside top

Page 1

Page 1


Page 1

Page 1


Page 1

Page 1

Inside bottom
 


Bottom centered


Outside bottom

Formating

The text format for the page number supports typical font type, font size, and font style (bold and italics) definitions, along with the text colour.

You can also enable or disable font outlines of various thicknesses and colors, and a variety of background colors for the page numbers. The background colour fills the width of the page in line with the definition of the text field.

Tip:

If you prefer black page backgrounds, why not try a neon effect using a yellow font outline and a black font color.

Example:
Neon-Effekt



Layout frame tools

Layout frames are the placeholders in which images are inserted, and the text frames in which text is input.

These tools can be applied both with an empty layout frame and when they are filled with content (that is images or texts).

"Rotate frame counter-clockwise" and "Rotate Frame Clockwise"

These tools rotate the layout frame (including content) through 90°.
To invert an image or a text, simply click the tool twice.

"More frame settings"

This is a tool group (identifiable by the triangle icon next on the button – just click it) with the following commands:

"Move active frame one level forward" and "Move active frame one level back".

Layout frames can partially overlap and hide each other.

This command organizes the order in which the frames are superimposed, that is, which frame is in the foreground and which frame is in the background of the layout.

Text frames are always in the foreground and can be hidden by other text frames but can never be behind an image.

"Position active frame"

The "Position active frame" group of commands gives you absolute control over the position, rotation, size and zoom factor of your content. It groups the three previously described steps and the zoom command in a single dialog box. The command group is also available in the layout frame drop-down menu (right click the frame), and you can select multiple layout frames to apply the same values at the same time.

The dialog box for this command group has four tabs "Position", "Rotation", "Size" and "Zoom".

The "Keep..." options are enabled by default.

"Zoom"

The zoom factor determines how the image scales within the frame.

You can either keep the current zoom factor, or set a new zoom factor.
The zoom factor is defined as a numeric value in percent.

This function does not apply to text boxes. To change the font size, you must format the text.

"Size"

The layout frame size is defined in absolute centimetre values for the height and width or the image is scaled as a percent value. This also works with text boxes.

"Rotation"

The "Set rotation" option rotates images by absolute values. Rotation relates to the product editor workspace.

The "Rotate image" option rotates images relatively. Rotation relates to the image and/or the layout frame. If the layout frame has already been rotated, the new rotation is added to the current rotation value.

You can also use this command to rotate text boxes.

"Position"

This positioning option lets you place images and text images in the layout with millimeter accuracy.

As a reference, the page width (for vertical positioning) or the page height (for horizontal positioning) of the layout area is displayed.
This explains why the page width for photo books always relates to the full page spread.

The following positions are supported:
Before: Vorher   "Move all images uniformly" Einheitlich verschieben
"Center mid-point horizontally" Mittelpunkt horizontal   "Center mid-point vertically" Mittelpunkt vertikal
"Align right vertically" rechts vertikal   "Align left vertically" links vertikal
"Align bottom horizontally" unten horizontal   "Align top horizontally" oben horizontal

Mid-point, right, left, top, and bottom all relate to the layout frame.
Horizontally and vertically relate to the product editor layout area.
There is an additional mid-point option that lets you position the layout frame at the center of the page.

Caution: Avoid moving images or texts so far that they drop off the visible area of the editor window. If you deselect an image, you will not be able to move it back. It will automatically be removed from your order, if it lies outside the workspace.



Image Tools 

After filling a layout frame with an image and selecting the image, additional image editing tools appear in the object toolbar and in the drop-down menu (right mouse button):

The Quality Display (Smiley)

The quality display, the smiley in the toolbar, is a useful aid when resizing images ("Scale down image" / "Scale up image") that allows you to evaluate the quality of the image for printing.

A green smiley means: The image resolution is high enough to achieve good quality. No quality loss with an image of this size.

A yellow smiley means: The image resolution is not ideal for achieving good quality. This means that you will have to accept minor quality loss if you keep the image size, or you might prefer to scale down the image.

A red smiley means: The image resolution is too low to achieve good quality.
(An additional "Caution" icon is displayed in the image itself.)
You should avoid using the image at this size as this would lead to clearly visible loss of quality. You can either scale down the image, or use another image with a higher resolution.

"Scale down image"
"Scale up image"

change the view size within the layout frame. You can use this to e.g. choose the image section that you want to show in the frame. You can hold down the mouse button to move the image within the frame, if the image is larger than the frame.

Zooming in and out is easier if you use the mouse scroll wheel.

Pay attention to the quality display smiley or you may end up with poor quality images!

"Editing the frame and image shadow"

You can add coloured frames to your image to help them stand out from the background. You can specify the frame width (line thickness) and a colour in the frame properties. You can also add a shadow to the image, this makes the image look as if it were floating above the background. You can set the gap, the intensity (opacity), and the direction of the shadow. To set the direction, move the sun symbol around the Earth. The preview lets you check the effect of your settings. You can apply the frame and shadow properties either for the active (selected) image, for all the images on this page, or for all images on all pages.

"Additional Image Settings"

This is a tool group (identifiable by the triangle icon next on the button – just click it) with the following commands:

"Rotate image counter-clockwise in frame"
"Rotate image clockwise in frame"

These two tools rotate the frame through 90° within the layout frame (but without rotating the frame itself).
This is important, because if you choose a different layout, a layout frame will remain rotated, but a rotated image will be reset to 0°.

"Image as background left"
"Image as background right"
"Use as background image"

This tool lets you use the currently selected image as the background for the right or left page, or the double page spread.

In contrast to the backgrounds from the background object browser, you can select an image of your own as the background and edit the image in the photo viewer.

"Find image in directory view"

selects the thumbnail of the currently selected image in the object browser.

"Find similar images..."

This function searches the directory containing the selected image for images either photographed at the same time (by date and time) and/or which look similar. You can use the slider to set the degree of similarity. If you set the slider to a stricter setting, you will have less, but probably better, matches.

"Automatic image correction at laboratory"

The automatic image correction (AIC) software is a software used by the photo laboratory to automatically correct the white balance and other image properties and thus obtain the best possible quality for the photo. It is advised that you disable AIC for images that you have edited yourself using an image editing program or images that you have scanned. You should also disable AIC for images with critical colors, such as e.g. sunsets, to avoid falsifying the colors. Automatic white balance would make the red hues of a sunset look pale.

"Edit Image"

opens the photo viewer with image editing functions. (See the chapter "Photo Viewer".)
Launched in the workspace, the photo viewer prompts you, when you quit, to decide whether you want to apply the changes you made to an image for this order only, or if you want to save the changes to the original on disc.



Text Tools

Inserting a text box

You can create a new text box by clicking the "New Text" tool in the toolbar, or you can use the drop-down menu (right click on the workspace).

The new text box appears top left on the page by default.
You can then move it to the required position.
The text box originally contains a default text "- Your text -".

Text formatting tools

When a text box is active (selected) additional text formatting commands appear in the toolbar and drop-down menu (right mouse button):

Font selection box

A list of the fonts installed on your computer is available in the toolbar. The font names and samples are displayed.

Font size selection box

A list of available font sizes in the toolbar.

"Set text colour"

for setting the colour of the selected text.

"Set text box background colour "

Applies the selected colour to the background of the text box.  

"Additional text settings..."

This is a tool group (identifiable by the triangle icon next on the button – just click it) with the following commands:

"Bold"
"Italic"
"Underline"

for the font style (bold, italic) and for underlining the selected text

"Align left"
"Align right"
"Justified"
"Centered"

These are paragraph formats that govern the text alignment inside the text box. They either apply to the whole of the paragraph in which the text cursor currently is, or to all (including partially) selected paragraphs.

"Set text box properties..."

This is where you can set the gap between the text and the text frame. This can be important if you have defined a background color for your text box.

Text format changes

Text format changes only affect any new text you enter to the right of the text cursor, or to the currently selected text.
If you want to format text after entering it, you must first select the text.

To select an area of text, hold down the left mouse button and drag the mouse over your selection, or position the text cursor at the start of the text you want to format, then hold down the Shift key, and click the end of the text you want to format.
You can select a single word by double clicking the word.
You can select all the content in a text field by pressing the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl" + "a".
Then click the format command.