Digital Workshop

I'm using Opus Pro 5.5

Can someone please help me with a printing issue??

I have a small text input box on a chapter page that I want to be able to print out on it's own. At the moment it prints out ok - but right in the middle of the paper. Is there any way I can get it to print at the top of the paper instead?

I have attached a page from my project if it helps you get a better idea of what I'm trying to achieve.

Opus printouts are always centred on the page. One way to work around this would be to design a tall thin page, put all your information at the top of that and print that instead.

Do you mean like creating a hidden page? Would this work with the text input?

Yes, create a new chapter containing the larger pages to be printed. You could put a normal text object on the page using the same variable as the text input and then when you print it it will contain the current value of the text input.

Note that you need to use publication variables, not page ones, but since that's the default for new variables you should be OK.

Sorry - I'm not sure I'm with you. Do you mean by putting a new text input box on the new page with the same variables as the original that i should copy and paste? Also, what print action should i set for the print button on the original page?

Hi Duncan - sorry to be a pain, do you think you could explain this to me?

I have created a new chapter with a larger page and placed the text input box (copied from my original page) at the top of the page, but how do i get the speech bubble to print out from the larger page when i am typing in text on the original page?

At the moment it just prints out the empty speech bubble - in the right place on the page but without the typed message from the original page.

Hope this makes sense!

Hi Emma

I had a quick look at your publication and found the reason as to why you are printing a blank text box.

With respect to your text input box, you need to look at the properties of the input box and create a variable where you can store whatever the text the user wants to input. On the attached example, I created a variable called 'chatter' by right clicking on the Text Input tab of the input boxes properties.

Then on the print page, you should create a vector graphic and use a text box to insert the contents of the variable. If you look at the print page, you'll see the 'chatter' variable inserted.

Generally, you can insert the contents of any variable in any text box. Just draw a text box and use the right mouse button and select 'Insert variable or expression' which creates a list of all the variables.

Have a look at the attached and then ask all the questions you want to ask.

There's no way you can be a pain here, especially when you are having a go and experimenting to find your own solutions and importantly, learning from it!

Cheers

Graham

Graham - thank you so much! I have been stuck on this all day, I can now get on with the fun stuff!

Thanks,
Emma.

Hi again Emma

I had another look at your publication because I noticed you used a speech bubble jpg rather than an easy to draw vector graphic.

Opus has some great autoshape drawing tools and one of the autoshapes is almost exactly the same as your jpg graphic. The big advantage of using an autoshape is that you wouldn't have a white box 'stuck on' effect around your speech bubble as you currently have.

Once you draw your autoshape, you can overlay the autoshape with a text input box and select the properties of the input box to remove the automatic border and the grey shadow outline.

Voila!

You have a natural looking text bubble.

Just be sure you don't confuse the drawing tools with hotspot tools. They look the same but have very different purposes and uses.

The other thing I noticed is that your chapter 2, page 1 page size is the same as the text input page size. If you want printing at the top, you can change the Chapter 2, Page 1 page size through the chapter properties feature.

I changed your print page size to 300 by 500 as an example.

Cheers

Graham