A couple of Newbie questions.

[ericBerkow]

Still new to the whole FP Desktop thing.

 

1. We were working on a design that had round image boxes that we wanted to use as FP Desktop variable image boxes.

 

The ID plugin will let us specify the image box as a variable graphic frame, but it is not a variable graphic frame when the PDF opens.

 

Is this possible, or do we have to use the round clipping paths in EPS files for the image resources?

 

2. We received a letter that was set in MS Word, and they wanted to make only the signature block variable, so I saved a PDF out of Word. When I opened the PDF in Acrobat, all of the FP items were greyed out.

 

I was told we could add variability to any PDF, is that incorrect?

 

Thanks!

[Dan Korn]

Still new to the whole FP Desktop thing.

 

1. We were working on a design that had round image boxes that we wanted to use as FP Desktop variable image boxes.

 

The ID plugin will let us specify the image box as a variable graphic frame, but it is not a variable graphic frame when the PDF opens.

 

Is this possible, or do we have to use the round clipping paths in EPS files for the image resources?

FusionPro does not support variable frames with rounded corners. So you would have to modify the graphic files themselves.

2. We received a letter that was set in MS Word, and they wanted to make only the signature block variable, so I saved a PDF out of Word. When I opened the PDF in Acrobat, all of the FP items were greyed out.

 

I was told we could add variability to any PDF, is that incorrect?

You can indeed use any PDF as a FusionPro template document. However, if a given PDF has not already been set up as a FusionPro template, you first need to "FusionPro-ify" it by specifying a data source. Bring up the Define Data Source Wizard, either from the menu (FusionPro -> Data Definition -> Wizard) or from the FusionPro toolbar (the big orange "F" button), then make your choices. If you want to start designing the layout before you create the data, simply click "Next" on the first screen, and then select "None" on the second screen. (You can change the data source at any time by opening the wizard again.)

 

Also, if you want to take the contents of something like a MS Word document and make it into a variable data piece in FusionPro, you'll want to create a text frame in the PDF and then copy-and-paste the text from Word into the FusionPro text frame.