On the left side of the top menu bar, you can Undo/Redo previous operations. This may also be done by keyboard with CTRL-Z for Undo and CTRL-Shift-Z for Redo.
Template
In the center of the top menu bar, Printess displays the name of the currently opened Template (a new Template will be displayed as [Unsaved Template]). If a Template from another user is opened you will see the user of origin in a circle to the left of the Template name.
By clicking on the Cloud icon, the Template Context menu will open as a drop-down.
This menu contains the following actions:
Notice: Don’t continue working in this Editor, it is for checking past work and any changes made will be overwritten on save unless the document is saved as a new Template.
We kindly ask for your understanding that Printess supports not all features of Adobe InDesign, as most of the settings are managed directly within Printess. To ensure a smooth import, we recommend keeping your InDesign document as simple as possible.
This feature gives you the option to import Adobe InDesign documents which still are editable afterwards.
Therefore you have to export an Adobe InDesign Package which includes the Adobe InDesign IMDL. In a second step you have to zip this Adobe Package. Now you choose the option Import IDML zip package to select the file you would like to import. Before the import starts Printess will ask which layers you would like to import.
Here you can select each single layer from the Adobe InDesign document for the import. In general you would import all of them.
Layers
Printess will always add the layers from the Adobe InDesign document to the Printess Template to name them in the same way you did in Adobe InDesign. These imported layers will be arranged underneath the Printess BASE LAYER. Printess will never place frames of the Adobe InDesign document onto the Printess BASE LAYER.
Fonts
If the fonts of your Adobe InDesign document are part of the package you have exported, Printess will import them if the are compatible. Printess supports static Open Type Fonts and True Type Fonts. Variable fonts are not supported yet.
Please double check the Font Folder of your Adobe InDesign package before you zip and import it. Adobe Fonts will not be exported.
Adobe InDesign will only export those fonts which are in use by the Text Frames of your Adobe InDesign document. But Printess will also import any Character- or Paragraph-Style from Adobe InDesign. So if you have Character- or Paragraph-Styles defined in Adobe InDesign which are not used, Printess will show you an error message about missing fonts.
Take extra care with font licenses!
Most fonts you buy come with licenses that do not allow you to use them for web pages, or for more than one designer to use the font to produce documents. So please take extra care to not use such fonts if documents will be published or edited on the Buyer Side.
Printess will load font data from fonts even if they are used for non-editable text. As fonts licenses are treated like software, this may result in expensive penalties or lawsuits.
Please only use fonts where the license explicitly grants you the rights to use them on the web, copy and distribute them, and in the best case allow also for modification (as this is what you do by providing the Printess Editor to end-users). If in doubt, please contact your font vendor to discuss your intended use case and request written notice of allowance.
A good license which grants all of the necessary rights is the current SIL/OFL font license used by many free fonts. A good source of fonts under such a license is the Google Fonts project.
Character and Paragraph Styles
Printess will import any Paragraph and Character Style available in your Adobe InDesign document - even if they are not used in any of the text frames within the Adobe InDesign document.
Only the basic Character and Paragraph Style features from Adobe InDesign like Font, FontSize, FontColor are supported in Printess. So we recommend to do a basic set up in Adobe InDesign to fine tune these Style directly in Printess later.
More complex Paragraph- and Character Styles need to be adjusted again in Printess.
Text The Adobe InDesign text flow can be imported into Printess - text wrap not.
Images
Only images which are part of your Adobe InDesign package you have exported will be imported by Printess. Printess supports .tif, .png and .jpg formats.
Rotated inner image and masked image frames could not be imported into Printess.
Colors
Printess will import all color swatches defined in Adobe InDesign Colors to put them in a separate folder called ROOT COLOR GROUP.
Any additional color - which is not defined as a color swatch - you are using in your Adobe InDesign document will be placed at the Printess default color group.
If you would like to make them accessible for the Buyer you have to move them to the color group Buyer Colors.
Pages
Printess do not support Adobe InDesign Multi Page Spreads.
The Settings Menu (located on the right of the top menu bar) gives you control over various important Template-wide settings:
Show Smart Guides: Enables or disables the Smart Guide positioning aid. This useful aid can snap frames to edges or maintain a user-set distance to other frames as you move them around.
Show Grid Lines: This displays a grid onto which all frame positions and sizes will snap whenever you move or scale frames.
Grid Gap-Size (actual): Sets the size of the grid.
Show Layer Matrix: This opens the Layer Matrix settings on the bottom of the window. Learn more about Layer Matrix here.
Show Database: This opens the Add Database option at the bottom of the window. Here you can load data from a Google Sheets Share-Link.
Show Styles: This activates small label tags for all frames that have a Style. Multi Line texts will also show labels for paragraph and character Styles.
Show Exchange IDs: Shows labels for Exchange IDs (used for content persistence when changing layout Snippets).
Show Paragraphs Shows Paragraphs and forced Line Breaks in Multi Line Text Frames
Show UI Hints: This enables or disables UI hints.
Search in Global Snippets: This is a useful feature for multi-user scenarios where a separate global account is used to publish all Templates and Snippets stored within the user’s eCommerce/Shop system. To see all published Snippets in this type of global account while not logged in, enable this option.
Buyer View Appearance: Opens the Buyer View Appearance settings menu which lets you fine-tune various Buyer Side UI elements with powerful customization options.
Template Type (__): Shows the current Template Type. Selecting this will open the Template Type menu where you can merge Resource Libraries, add Dropshipper info, or change between Design, Library,and Base Templates.
If you click on the gear icon on the upper right the Template Settings Menu will open (A). Select Template Preferences to open the Template Preferences Dialog (B).
Here you can enable/ disable the following Settings:
This enables or disables the creation of thumbnails for the Template - This can save time when working with large documents.
If switched on, all frames will have visible borders on the Design Side. This is especially helpful for adjusting text frame layouts where the border is normally not visible.
This feature is activated by default.
So if you take a Shape frame to set the Shape Color to “None” the frame becomes invisible.
But now you can use the edges and its center as vertical and horizontal snap lines at the Buyer Side.
These red snap lines appear as soon as the edge of the moved frame will touch them. That enables the Buyer to place the frame precisely.
This option is activated by default. It enables the execution of some Form Field actions like script execution or write-to-second-form-field. These action are meant for the Buyer Side and won’t be executed at the Designer Side if you disable this option.
Here you can assign a dedicated Product Type of your Layout Snippets to your Template. So if you have defined Product Types for you Layout Snippets you can filter them here so that only the matching Layout Snippets will be shown at the Buyer Side.
Learn more about Layout Snippet Product Type here
Here you can define a Hyphenation Language for the entire Printess Template. Even though you can define a different language for a dedicated Multi Line Text Frame.
Learn how to define a Hyphenation Language for a dedicated Multi Line Text Frame
If a Hyphenation Language is active you can restrict it to justified paragraphs only.