Ch. 016a Field Setup: Format for Text Fields

eDocBuilder provides all the formatting tools needed for precise document preparation with text formatting tools, predefined structure formatting, spot colors, layering and rotation of text and images.

Font: Choice of both Windows system fonts and the fonts you added to your asset area will display. If this field is from a forms-based template and you are using the rich text editor option, these are the fonts your customer will have to choose from when customizing their template. There is no way at this time to turn off the system fonts.

Font Effect: eDocBuilder provides six different Font Effects that you can apply to your Text Fields: Bridge, Bulge, Pinch, Roof, Round, and Valley. By default, all templates are set to "None" so that the effects will only be available when you specifically allow them to be. On Form templates your customer does not get an option of which effect to use; you must select it in this drop-down. If you are working on an Interactive Designer template, then you can select a default effect to use and then based on the Font Effect Rules you set in the Rules tab, you can either allow the customer to select a new effect or not. For more detail on setting up your Font Effects, refer to this page of the documentation.

Size: Choose a font size ranging from 1 point to 250 points in the drop-down. The lowest this can be set is determined by what is entered in the "Minimum font size" box below the Size selection. If you wish to go over 250 points, click and highlight the number then replace with the font size in points you need.

Formatting: If you would like to display the font with Bold, Italic or Underline, choose those here.

Important: It is recommended that you upload and use the actual bold font (Arimo Bold) or italic font (Arimo Italic), instead of using the formatting buttons to achieve bold and italic effects. The use of the Bold and Italic buttons creates a synthetic version of the font which may not produce the intended results. The use of the Bold selection along with the bold version of the font also produces a synthetic version. Each font responds to eDocBuilder synthesizing the "bold" or "italic" option differently; some better than others. If you run into issues where the font shows visual problems or added elements in the resulting production file, then chances are the font isn't compatible. As a rule, it's always better to use an actual bold or italic font. 

Text Alignment: Set the desired position of the text. Nine options are available. The alignment will apply to all text in the form field.

Block Alignment: Options are None, Left, Center, Right. Aligns multiple lines of text based on the longest line. Example:

Here you can see the contact information lines moving around in the field from Left, Center, and Right while keeping all lines organized.

Tracking: Set the overall letterspacing for the group of letters and blocks of text in your form field. Use tracking to change the overall appearance and readability of the text to make the characters either closer together (tighter), or spread out (looser). The tracking applies to the entire form field and not individual letters within the group (which is kerning).

Leading: Set the desired leading, or choose "auto" which will use the leading specified for your particular font (typically your best choice). Leading is the distance between each line of text in that form field.

Opacity %: You may change the overall opacity of the text in your field. When lowering the opacity any images or text below this field will show through depending on the percentage you set. This should not be confused with Tint. It is not changing the tint of your text color.

Force Fit Text: If you need the entry from the customer to fit within the allowed space you set with your form field you can check this box to ensure all the text fits within the space. Force fit decreases the font on three axes simultaneously: font size, leading (space between lines), and tracking (space between characters). Each step attempts to decrease each of these by five percent, and they are all reduced by the same percentage. In other words, if it's necessary to shrink to half the initial font size to fit all the text in the field, the text will also decrease to half the initial leading and half the initial tracking at the same time. For Interactive Designer templates, the Force Fit Text option respects the Minimum Font Size setting in the field’s Rules tab. This means that whenever Force Fit goes into effect, it will not reduce the font size below the Minimum Font Size setting. Keep in mind that this will also limit the percentage that the leading and tracking are automatically adjusted by the Force Fit option, as they will always be reduced by the same percentage as the font size is.

Max lines: This controls how many lines are allowed in the field and can be used if "Force Fit Text" is checked. If the user uses line breaks to produce more lines than the "Max lines" number you have set, their text will be truncated. Also, if reducing the text size is necessary, the end result will not have more lines in it than the "Max lines" you have set. Note that this may result in a smaller font size than would be necessary if more lines were allowed.

Minimum Font Size - When using force fit, you may want to set a minimum font size that the font can be reduced to.

Text Color: Enter Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black values to define a process color for the font color.

Spot Color Name: If a spot color is needed, enter the spot color name in that textbox and ALSO enter the CMYK values to give the spot color’s approximate appearance. The CMYK appearance will be used on-screen and in color composite proofs.

Fill Color: This option is only available for Interactive Designer Templates. Enter Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black values to define a process color for the background of a text field.

Spot Color Name: If a spot color is needed, enter the spot color name in that textbox and ALSO enter the CMYK values to give the spot color’s approximate appearance. The CMYK appearance will be used on-screen and in color composite proofs.

Horizontal and Vertical Scaling: Applies distortion to the text based on the value entered. Distort the text to be wider or more narrow with the horizontal scaling option, or taller or shorter using the vertical text scaling. This option is not available in Interactive Designer templates. See the Rules tab for specific formatting allowed for Interactive Designer templates.

Font Outline, thickness and CMYK color for the outline: Use this option if you would like to add an outline around your font characters. You may choose the thickness and set a CMYK value for the outline. Spot color is not an available option. For Interactive Designer templates, this option is only available when using the Font Effects feature. For all other text fields for the Interactive Designer, see the Rules tab for specific formatting allowed for Interactive Designer templates.

Shadow: The shadow option applies to text fields using a Font Effect. If you would like your Font Effect to include a shadow, select the "Enabled" box. The following additional prompts apply to the Font Effect Shadows:

  • DPI - Choose between 300, 150, 96, 72 the higher the DPI the longer the field may take to render. The shadow is an image and so is added at the selected DPI
  • CMYK/RGB Color - Enter either a CMYK or RGB value for the color of the shadow.
  • Size - Determines the size percentage of the shadow. The higher the percentage the softer the edge of the shadow.
  • Horizontal Offset - Negative offset moves the shadow to the left and Positive offset moves the shadow to the right.
  • Vertical Offset - Negative offset moves the shadow up, Positive offset moves the shadow down.
  • Opacity - Sets the opacity of the shadow.
Text direction: Options are Horizontal (standard), Horizontal (right to left) and Vertical (Asian).
  • Horizontal (standard) text runs in lines from left to right, with successive lines proceeding top to bottom.
  • Horizontal (right to left) in the Format tab, will properly accept scripts — like Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, and Urdu — that need to run in lines from right to left, with successive lines proceeding top to bottom. Important: Left-to-right scripts can still be typed in fields with this setting and will not appear incorrectly. However, right-to-left scripts will only work correctly when used in a field with this text setting.
  • Vertical text runs in lines from top to bottom, with successive lines proceeding right to left. Important: only fonts that have been embedded in Unicode can use vertical text.
Text Reformat: Options include special case formatting, Telephone numbers, email, URL, European formats.
  • Simple Title Case - The first letter of each word is capitalized.
  • Intelligent Title Case (English) - The first letter of each word is capitalized with exceptions: These words are always uppercase: PO RR CEO VP VP CFO COO III II IV CTO. These words are always left alone (their case not altered): with, when, and, or, a, an, the, from, to, on, as, of, in, at, for, will.
  • Email - All spaces will be removed, and text will be forced to lowercase.
  • Always Reformat box should be checked if you want to include MANDATORY formatting. If this is not checked, the initial view by the customer will display in the format you choose here but they will be able to change it. An example of this would be a specific phone number format on a business card that uses periods between the digits (123.222.3323). If you want to make sure the customer cannot change that format to use dashes in between the digits, you will want to check the box to always reformat, if you want them to have that flexibility and change it, then leave that box unchecked. Choice of "Custom" or "Custom - Digits Only" will allow you to specify your own unique formatting.
  • Preserve Spaces makes sure the spaces set in the format do not truncate. (May be used when you want your customer to be able to use the space bar to insert more than one space between words. Normally multiple spaces are collapsed into a single space, according to HTML rules). Preserve spaces are also used when using field scripting and you want to preserve more than one space in a group of text.

See the Rules tab for specific formatting allowed for Interactive Designer templates.

Stacking Order: Specifies layering of text or image in relation to an image or another object. (This use of the word "stacking" has nothing to do with "stacking groups", described later.) You may set your fields on different layers for many different reasons. Setting a stacking order of -1 would put the field behind the background. an example of this might be a template with a frame image with the center set as transparent. You want the customer to upload an image and have it behind that background in your master PDF. You will also use this option if you are using the Overlay Option. An overlay must be on layers 101-110 and these layers have specifically been reserved for the overlays and must not be used otherwise. Options for stacking order:

  • -1 = below master PDF
  • 1-100 = normal fields
  • 101-110 = overlay fields - In Interactive Designer templates, these fields cannot be edited by the user and will always appear over user-added fields.
  • Please do not use "0" as a value for Stacking Order. This is reserved for the Master PDF. Using this value will cause unwanted behavior on your templates.
Rotation: Applies an angle to text or image based on the value, in degrees entered into the field. With the Interactive Designer, you will also be able to let the customer change this rotation if you set it up to do so in the Rules Tab.
  • 0° value =no change
  • 90° = vertical text
  • 180° = upside down
  • -90° or 270° = vertical reversed
Rotate On: The options are to rotate on either the Center or Lower Left part of the form field. For Interactive Designer templates, the only option is to rotate on center (at this time).

Field Usage: Drop down defines four options for how the field will be viewed.

  • "Proof and Production" viewable in all outputs
  • "Proofing Only" will exclude the field from the production file.
  • "Production Only" viewable on the proof, not included on the production file.
  • "Hide Field" conceals the field from both production and proof files. Use this for fields where the user enters a value that is used elsewhere in scripting formulas.

Repeat Field: You can set this field to appear at the exact same position on subsequent pages of your template by checking this box. This option is not available in Interactive Designer templates. See this chapter on more detail of using the Repeating Fields feature.

Copy Formatting From: You can copy the formatting from one field to another by selecting a field from this drop-down list. The formatting settings from the field selected here will then be applied to this field.

Questions and Answers from the Knowledge Base

Fonts

Formatting