Learn how to prepare documents for the Print Science Designer using Adobe Acrobat Pro and the PDFlib Block plugin. Covers TextLine, TextFlow, and Image blocks.
Video Transcript
00:00 This video illustrates preparing a document so it may be used for the Print Science Designer.
00:06 In order to prepare a document for use with the designer, we first must convert the original or source files into PDF.
00:13 We then open the PDF in a version of Acrobat Pro with the free-of-charge PDFlib Block plugin installed.
00:19 The PDFlib Block plugin may be downloaded from the printscience.com website under support.
00:26 This video will demonstrate the use of the PDFlib Block tool.
00:30 We will create three blocks to demonstrate the three different block types.
00:34 First, to access the block tool, navigate to the top menu: PDFlib Blocks.
00:41 In this menu, you'll want to select 'Detect underlying font and color'.
00:46 Within the same menu, you'll want to enable the PDFlib Block Tool.
00:51 With the tool enabled, the cursor will become a pair of crosshairs.
You can begin to draw your first block.
00:58 We'll select the name.
01:02 When you create the block, once you've released, the new block properties menu will appear.
01:07 Please note the block name.
01:10 The system automatically names these blocks in the order that they are created.
01:14 If you do choose to change the name of the block, you must keep 'block_' at the beginning of the name.
01:20 Under the block type, you can select TextLine, TextFlow, or Image.
01:26 We're going to do a TextLine for this block.
01:29 The description field should pertain to the content within the block.
01:33 It is used by both the designer and the print shop staff when they go to print.
01:38 We'll title this 'Name'.
01:41 Now we will draw a TextFlow block.
We'll use this for the address.
01:47 A TextFlow block allows text to span over multiple lines.
01:53 As we did for the name, we can select the block type and enter a description.
02:01 We'll select 'TextFlow' as the type and 'Address' as the description.
02:09 Please take a look at the 'Appearance' section within the properties menu.
02:15 Since we selected 'Detect underlying font and color', many of these fields have already been populated.
02:22 These fields can be manually changed as you see fit.
02:27 Finally, we'll draw an image block.
We'll select the logo.
02:33 For the type, we'll select 'Image' and 'Logo' for the description.
02:39 Within the properties menu, select 'Object Fitting' and 'Fill to Size'.
02:46 This will cause any image uploaded by the customer to fill the image block.
02:52 Now that we've created the blocks, click the selection tool to close out.