Knowledge Base & Forums/User Forums/Studiometry Feature Requests
PlannedDoneNot planned
Using PDF artwork for Templates
Michael Barker
suggested this on February 18, 2011 08:48 am
It would be much simpler to get up and running with report and invoice templates if users could use PDF artwork of their existing stationary as a background layer for the studiometry templates.
Comments
Would this third-party realbasic plugin do the trick?: http://www.monkeybreadsoftware.de/realbasic/plugin-dynapdf.shtml "Create, import and modify PDF files on Mac, Windows and Linux. Includes PDF split and merge, fonts embedding and text extraction" — seems like it would allow pdf-import and pdf-combining too, which might work for my proposal to provide a feature allowing users to import PDF backgrounds for templates — which would make it much easier to convert an existing layout to a studiometry template.
just to clarify — I am able to place PDFs into templates, but when I export them as PDFs (via Mac OS) the PDFs don't render properly (low-res/blurry)
It might be converting them to images and putting that in, which won't produce the best results. For now putting a PDF into a template isn't officially supported and you would most likely have to simply convert it to an image beforehand to get the best results. We are looking into getting better PDF support going into and from templates and will most likely be using the plugin mentioned earlier.
It would be a great feature and I'm glad you're considering it. Many similar (mac) applications that offer customized invoices use the PDF 'background' workflow model.
An update on this topic: we're in the testing phases with this feature to see how effective it will be with the current template setup. We've been working on the feature and there's a chance it will make it into 9.0, but it's not guaranteed. We'll keep this post updated as we learn more and decide whether it will make it into the upcoming update.
Development on this feature has been progressing very well and we're almost certain this will be included in the 9.0 release, barring any unforeseen issues during testing and tweaking. With the current alpha, you can drag/drop a PDF into each page of your template to use as a backdrop (the rest of the invoice elements are displayed on top of the backdrop), which then retains its PDF format when exporting to or emailing as a PDF.
Thank you!
Not sure that this is 'Done' given that there's no guarantee it will make it into version 9.
[But — I should add more generously — that I'm thrilled that you are working on it]
This feature is completed and implemented but the entire beta isn't. We are trying to be as transparent as possible so we're letting people know when specific features have been completed. The beta is going to be out within the next 12 hours.