sschardan

Thank you, Dan.

It's October, so that means Adobe has once again released Indesign updates that have broken FusionPro. I saw an email that there is a pending 13.1 FP soon to be released. Will this release be compatible with Adobe CC 2024? Will this release be compatible with MacOS 14, Sonoma? (is the current 13.0.4 compatible with Sonoma?) Will 13.1 fix the known Mac bug that crashes Producer Monitor when trying to view the log? I have seen posts here saying a native Mac Silicone version of FP is in the works. I understand and appreciate that this is a tall task. But the M1 chip has now been out for three years, come November, and we are now on the verge of the M3. Any news on when FP will run natively? Any info for these questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

This is what I do for this situation: Create a pg. 1 with a design that bleeds past the trim so it can be seen from the edge when cut, like this: I put pertinent info on that page to make it easy for the finishers. I name it "divider" and set it to be unused. I then have this for OnRecordStart: FusionPro.Composition.repeatRecordCount = 125 if (FusionPro.Composition.repeatRecordNumber % 25 == 1) {FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage("divider", true)} and this text rule for my Pad # that prints on the divider page: return Int(FusionPro.Composition.repeatRecordNumber/25) + 1 The Modulus (%) is the remainder from dividing the repeated record number by 25. So when the repeat record number is 1, the remainder is also 1, and the divider page prints as the first page of a set of 25. Hope this helps.

Here is something I have done in the past. Maybe this will work for you: Javascript Global var SetCount = 0 var SubSetCount = 1 If using imposition stacking OnJobStart FusionPro.Composition.chunksBreakStacks = true; OnRecordStart var JobNumber = "78807 " var StackSize = 4000 function NewName() { FusionPro.Composition.OpenNewOutputFile(JobNumber + Field("Package") + "_" + SubSetCount + "." + FusionPro.Composition.outputFormatExtension); } if (FieldChanged("Package")) { SetCount = 1; SubSetCount = 1; NewName() } else { if (SetCount < StackSize) { SetCount = SetCount + 1; } else { SubSetCount = SubSetCount + 1; NewName() SetCount = 1; } }

I have had FusionPro act this way if I only have one style of a font loaded. When I load the font family, it behaves much better. And as Dan stated, this does require a restart of Acrobat.

When using XDF with producer, we always have to be sure to include a copy of it in the folder designated in the "search path for images" in producer.

As always Dan, thank you! Your insights and knowledge are immensely appreciated.

I just had a job that was a coupon where each card had a unique code, and they wanted the job delivered in multiple sets of differing quantities. Here is the code I used to successfully produce the job: // 4 sets of 380 if ((CurrentRecordNumber() >= 1) && (CurrentRecordNumber() <= 1520)) { SetQuantity = 380 } // 9 sets of 350 else if ((CurrentRecordNumber() >= 1521) && (CurrentRecordNumber() <= 4670)) { SetQuantity = 350 } // 34 sets of 255 else if ((CurrentRecordNumber() >= 4671) && (CurrentRecordNumber() <= 13340)) { SetQuantity = 255 } // 26 sets of 215 else if ((CurrentRecordNumber() >= 13341) && (CurrentRecordNumber() <= 18930)) { SetQuantity = 215 } // 28 sets of 170 else if ((CurrentRecordNumber() >= 18931) && (CurrentRecordNumber() <= 23690)) { SetQuantity = 170 } // 11 sets of 115 else if ((CurrentRecordNumber() >= 23691) && (CurrentRecordNumber() <= 24955)) { SetQuantity = 115 } // 1 set of 45 else if ((CurrentRecordNumber() >= 24956) && (CurrentRecordNumber() <= 25000)) { SetQuantity = 45 } if (SetCounter == 1) { FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage('divider', true) } if (SetCounter < SetQuantity) { SetCounter++; } else { SetCounter = 1; } In javascript globals I have defined SetCounter to 1 and SetQuantity to 0. Is there a way to make this more concise, and to determine the record numbers in a more dynamic way? I see this as being a repeating job in the future, but with differing set quantities and amounts per set. It would be nice to just enter the number of sets and quantities per set and have code to figure out the record numbers. I would appreciate any guidance anyone is willing to share! Thank you...

This might be a reach, but try exporting with different compression settings in the Output tab of the composer. There is now an Advanced compression that has given me some bad output with images. It turned subtle variations in a background of an image to blocky chunks, even dropping some portions to white. When I switched to basic or no compression, the problems went away.

Are you wanting 2500 sheets in a stack? Then the imposition would need to be set to be 2500 in the stack, and your output would need to be set to 5000 records per chunk, since the layout is 2up.

Thanks, Dan! I had forgotten to check the re-evaluate box on my FP Expression rules. I'll have to try the imposition method sometime.

For many years we have used a different software for personalized images. That software creates the images and creates an appended data list, such that the name of each unique image is in a new field named "Field1", "Field2", "Field3", etc. I bring that appended data into a simple template that I use to keep an updated contact sheet. Each page consists of 8 picture and text frames using the rules below: Text frame rule called label1: return (((FusionPro.Composition.currentPageNumber-1) * 8) + 1) Graphic frame rule called graphic1: var pic = CreateResource(".//images//" + Field("Field" + Rule("label1")), "graphic", true) return pic Theses rules are duplicated 7 more times and customized for each position. This works great. As I get more images, I duplicate as many pages as necessary, and it keeps bringing in the appropriate images and labels. Right now, I am up to 134 images. Now we are using FP Expression. So I thought I could continue with a similar style by using this rule: var ResourceName = Rule("label1"); var Field1 = "First"; var myPI = Resource(ResourceName); myPI.AddData(UntaggedRuleOrField(Field1) || " "); return myPI; and then name my FP Expression resources beginning at 135 to pick up where the other images ended. This is not working, because the call to create the Expression images happens before composition, so it is not bringing the composition page number into the label rule calculation, thus resulting in not being able to find resource 0, resource -1, resource -2, etc. Is there an alternative way to read the template body page number so it can be calculated up front? Thanks

I should say, insert your cell structure here, not your table structure. Your table structure is defined ahead of the loop

Use a loop to build the table, and insert a break tag to break out of the loop if a field is empty. for (var i = 0; i <= 16; i++) { var FieldToUse = (i + 1) if (Field("Item " + FieldToUse) == "" ) break; insert your table structure here }

Thanks. I did mean 10.14.5, fat fingers! Anyway Dan, your presumptions are true and I can not access the dropbox folder from within FP. What I did to work around this is to set up a folder action to sync the dropbox folder on my mac to a server folder that Producer can see.

Dan, The link is an "https". The template is being built in 11.0.9 on a Mac running 12.14.5, and due to the job's size, I intend on rendering it in our Producer that is running Windows Server 2016.

We have a client that is demanding that we use a Dropbox link as an image path to search for images. I am attempting this rule: var pic = CreateResource("dropbox link/"+Field("Image"), "graphic", true) return pic where "dropbox link/" is the actual private link. So far, it is not working. Not to say that I am surprised. Is this possible? My other solution would be to manually download all the images to a local folder just before composing new data. The dropbox link does go to the proper folder when placed in a web browser. Scott

You can thank Adobe for this. Acrobat DC 2020 is the issue. There is newer version of the 11.0.9 installer in the downloads that will work.

FYI: I have a template that uses the CopyFit line function on a text frame, and I get that same error when composing locally on my mac. But if I use Producer, I do not get the message. The job composes just fine, either way. I do not get this error message if I am just using the generic copy fitting on text frames that is activated from the "overflow..." menu. I am running 11.0.9 on Mac OS 10.14.5, Acrobat DC 2020

Dan, Yes, I wholeheartedly agree that with Masking Text personalization, this is possible. But when it is an Image Character personalization like this example, I do not see how it can be accomplished. And that is the feature request I am suggesting for consideration in the future.

image without

image with the shadow

Yes, exactly. Here are samples, one with the shadow within the variable, one without.

Yes, but what I am wishing for is to apply overlays to Fill Images and Image Characters that follow the shading of the background image without affecting the background.

Coming from DirectSmile, there is a feature that I miss, the ability to add an overlay strictly to the personalization. For instance, a personalization goes from a light area of an image into a dark area, such as the side of a building where a part of it is in daylight and a part is in the shadow of the overhang. In DirectSmile, I could apply an image to use as a shadow overlay to darken the personalization as it crosses into the darker area of the background image. This method would not darken the existing background image like the image overlay feature does in Expression, it would strictly darken the personalization alone. Just a wish for the future.