WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.800 Hi. Thank you for taking the time to evaluate XMPie's uCreate Print and Adobe InDesign with this simple direct mail tutorial. 00:00:08.800 --> 00:00:11.800 My name is Steve. I'm one of the XMPie trainers, 00:00:11.800 --> 00:00:18.633 and in this video I will show how quick and easy it is for uCreate Print to connect an InDesign file to a data source, 00:00:18.633 --> 00:00:25.199 tag text and graphic elements in the design and output efficient VPD print files. 00:00:25.200 --> 00:00:31.133 Simply download the zip file provided and extract the files on your Macintosh or Windows computer. 00:00:31.133 --> 00:00:38.866 The files include this PDF that documents the same instructions that I will show in case you prefer a hard copy, 00:00:38.866 --> 00:00:42.932 want to work offline or just don't like my voice. 00:00:42.933 --> 00:00:49.433 To follow along on your computer, you will need to have Adobe InDesign installed. The trial version is fine. 00:00:49.433 --> 00:00:58.766 And you can also download and install uCreate Print from the XMPie website. To start, open the Black Friday InDesign file. 00:00:58.766 --> 00:01:04.632 You will see that the document includes some fonts that are missing. If you have used Adobe Fonts before, 00:01:04.633 --> 00:01:12.633 they will automatically download and activate. Otherwise, you will see a dialog asking if you want to activate fonts from Adobe. 00:01:12.633 --> 00:01:15.966 If you agree, the fonts will download automatically. 00:01:15.966 --> 00:01:22.099 If you don't, substitute fonts will be used and things won't look quite the same as they do here. 00:01:22.100 --> 00:01:29.300 Next we need to find the Dynamic Content panel. If it is not displayed, open it from Windows menu 00:01:29.300 --> 00:01:32.366 or from the Dynamic Content menu. 00:01:32.366 --> 00:01:38.399 Click the button on the panel to link to the data file. We're using a data source. 00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:48.633 The file is provided with the sample files and is comma separated text. XMPie supports other separators and data file formats. 00:01:48.633 --> 00:01:51.766 All the data fields now appear in the panel. 00:01:51.766 --> 00:01:59.132 If you don't see the data values column in the panel you can enable that here in Preferences if you want. 00:01:59.133 --> 00:02:07.166 Use the Text Tool to select the storename and double click on the store Content Object in the Dynamic Content panel. 00:02:07.166 --> 00:02:10.832 And I will repeat to place the firstname down here. 00:02:10.833 --> 00:02:17.566 The panel allows you to scroll through different records and see how the document will be printed for different recipients. 00:02:17.566 --> 00:02:27.232 The highlighting is showing you where the dynamic objects are. If it is distracting for you, toggle it off or on here. 00:02:27.233 --> 00:02:31.599 Now, the design did have capital letters for the store and firstname, 00:02:31.600 --> 00:02:36.933 and you could select the text again and use the InDesign character style buttons. 00:02:36.933 --> 00:02:41.799 That's perfectly OK. We work with all the built-in InDesign features. 00:02:41.800 --> 00:02:48.366 But the typographer in me is saying that's not going to give the best result, so I will turn that back off. 00:02:48.366 --> 00:02:54.732 I'll right-click on the relevant Content Object here in the Dynamic Content panel and select Edit rule. 00:02:54.733 --> 00:03:01.733 XMPie provides many functions that can be used to format the data. The one I want is at the top. 00:03:01.733 --> 00:03:09.866 Now the uppercase characters are passed into the document. And I'll repeat the process for the other Content Object. 00:03:09.866 --> 00:03:16.332 00:03:16.333 --> 00:03:18.599 Now, on to page 2. 00:03:18.600 --> 00:03:26.833 I'll quickly place all the text data fields into the document, and then we can look at some more interesting features. 00:03:26.833 --> 00:03:42.166 00:03:42.166 --> 00:03:50.166 When placing dynamic content into a small text frame like this, you should check to make sure all your data values will fit. 00:03:50.166 --> 00:03:57.432 You can find the longest store name by using the right-click context menu in the Dynamic Content panel. 00:03:57.433 --> 00:04:05.833 I can see this one overflows the text box, so select the frame, right-click and we can add copy fitting. 00:04:05.833 --> 00:04:16.999 For text, you can control the font size, horizontal scaling and leading individually. For just one row, leading is not relevant. 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:24.866 OK. It is common for all the address fields to be in upper case. If you want to do that, I've already shown two options. 00:04:24.866 --> 00:04:29.899 Another design choice could be to leave the firstname in title case here. 00:04:29.900 --> 00:04:34.566 If you want to do that, you can simply duplicate the firstname Content Object. 00:04:34.566 --> 00:04:38.166 Perhaps rename it so you know what it is for. 00:04:38.166 --> 00:04:45.966 And edit the rule to remove the uppercase function and just select the firstname text field from the data source. 00:04:45.966 --> 00:04:53.299 Now, I can select the text again and double click to place the new Content Object into the design. 00:04:53.300 --> 00:04:59.900 Addresses can also have empty data fields, and having a blank link in the address looks untidy, 00:04:59.900 --> 00:05:09.900 so we can fix that by selecting the text frame, right-click and select Suppress trailing spaces on empty content. 00:05:09.900 --> 00:05:20.233 Sometimes you may need to format numbers in a specific way. I want to pre-pad the sort id with zeros so it is always 5 digits long, 00:05:20.233 --> 00:05:23.099 and the tray 3 digits long. 00:05:23.100 --> 00:05:28.100 Simply edit the content object, and select format number. 00:05:28.100 --> 00:05:39.500 Select the data source field, and 5 zeros will format the number to be 5 digits long. And repeat for the tray content object. 00:05:39.500 --> 00:05:55.833 00:05:55.833 --> 00:05:59.199 Now, let's look at the product details. 00:05:59.200 --> 00:06:08.700 00:06:08.700 --> 00:06:13.433 I want to make sure that these values will also remain in the text frames, 00:06:13.433 --> 00:06:19.866 so I will select all of these text frames and apply the copy fitting to all of them in one go. 00:06:19.866 --> 00:06:23.266 00:06:23.266 --> 00:06:31.132 For the product images, we should first set the assets folder location so the application knows where to find the graphics. 00:06:31.133 --> 00:06:37.699 You can see the asset images are named by the product code. So, select the product code Content Objects. 00:06:37.700 --> 00:06:46.533 You can control-shift on Windows or command-shift on Mac to select them both. Right-click and change their Type to Graphic. 00:06:46.533 --> 00:06:54.433 Now select the top graphic frame, and double-click the first product code Content Object. And repeat. 00:06:54.433 --> 00:07:03.066 If we needed the product code to appear as text in the document, we could also duplicate the Content Object like we did for firstname. 00:07:03.066 --> 00:07:11.566 Now, some of these images don't fit in the frame, so we can also apply Dynamic graphic copy fitting. 00:07:11.566 --> 00:07:16.766 I'll select to Fill the frame proportionally and centered. 00:07:16.766 --> 00:07:26.332 00:07:26.333 --> 00:07:35.666 Now for the postal barcode. The data file includes two different styles of address data. Intelligent Mail and DAFT. 00:07:35.666 --> 00:07:41.599 They both contain the same information, but you can see that the data is encoded differently. 00:07:41.600 --> 00:07:48.666 You can use either one, but the type of barcode we select will be different depending on the data you want to use. 00:07:48.666 --> 00:07:54.999 I will use the Intelligent Mail data, but I will point out the DAFT option when we get there. 00:07:55.000 --> 00:08:00.700 If you are used to using a barcode font, you can continue to use the method you are familiar with. 00:08:00.700 --> 00:08:05.633 Adobe and XMPie support both OpenType and TrueType fonts. 00:08:05.633 --> 00:08:14.133 But if you are new to using barcodes, XMPie implements barcodes as graphics rather than as text with a barcode font. 00:08:14.133 --> 00:08:20.299 So, our first step is to change the Content Object type to Graphic and then Edit the rule. 00:08:20.300 --> 00:08:31.266 First we need to select XMPBarcode. And then the type of barcode we want. If you are using the DAFT data, you will need to select DAFT. 00:08:31.266 --> 00:08:37.832 I'm using the Intelligent Mail data, so I will select USPS Intelligent Mail. 00:08:37.833 --> 00:08:48.966 Next is the data field to put in the barcode. I need IMBSample. If you're editing the DAFT sample, choose that data field. 00:08:48.966 --> 00:08:58.366 The next string field allows us to add control parameters to set specific heights, or colors. For this example, it is not needed. 00:08:58.366 --> 00:09:03.166 Now select the graphic frame, and double-click the barcode graphic Content Object. 00:09:03.166 --> 00:09:06.299 If your barcode looks a little chunky like this, 00:09:06.300 --> 00:09:12.766 you can select Display performance, and High quality display to improve the screen appearance. 00:09:12.766 --> 00:09:20.599 If you click in the middle of the frame to select the frame's contents, you will see that the barcode graphic is being cut off. 00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:30.733 Use the selection tool to select the frame again, and use the dynamic graphic copy fitting to make sure that it fits in the frame proportionally. 00:09:30.733 --> 00:09:37.233 This has been a really simple example, and there are many, many more advanced features possible with uCreate Print, 00:09:37.233 --> 00:09:45.866 so one more trick: The sample InDesign document has a layer which is hidden that has this starburst graphic on it. 00:09:45.866 --> 00:09:50.032 I'm going to create a new Content Object called shirt promo. 00:09:50.033 --> 00:09:54.933 The type is Visibility. And check the box to Edit the rule. 00:09:54.933 --> 00:10:04.633 I want the graphic to appear only if product code 1 is MA93472. 00:10:04.633 --> 00:10:11.233 Now we have a Content Object that can dynamically turn on and off either layers or pages. 00:10:11.233 --> 00:10:16.399 On the layers panel, I'll select the shirt promo layer and from the panel menu, 00:10:16.400 --> 00:10:21.433 select Dynamic Content and then the shirt promo Content Object. 00:10:21.433 --> 00:10:27.533 Now the layer is turned on automatically when the quality ties product is shown. 00:10:27.533 --> 00:10:31.299 00:10:31.300 --> 00:10:37.466 That's it! The job is done. I'll "Save as" so I can keep the original document. 00:10:37.466 --> 00:10:43.599 Now to print the document against the data source, we select Generate VDP output. 00:10:43.600 --> 00:10:47.333 Printing the document is not possible with the trial version, 00:10:47.333 --> 00:10:53.066 although you may get a time limited evaluation license from your XMPie Account Manager. 00:10:53.066 --> 00:10:59.332 You can output many common VDP output formats depending on what your press supports. 00:10:59.333 --> 00:11:07.333 In case you can't print, I've created a PDF of the first 12 records that you can look at here in the output folder. 00:11:07.333 --> 00:11:10.566 Again, thank you for your interest in XMPie products. 00:11:10.566 --> 00:11:16.166 If you would like to see more, reach out to your XMPie Account Manager to discuss your requirements, 00:11:16.166 --> 00:11:20.899 or check out some of our uCreate Print training videos here in XMPie Campus.