Impose Editor > Marks > Captions
Availability: All Versions
The Workflow offers the possibility to apply Captions to Print Items or the Sheet. We'll learn more in this article,
- What a Caption is
- Which types of Captions are available
- How Captions can be added and deleted in the Impose Editor
1. Background Information
When you prepare Print Items for printing in the Impose Editor, various Captions can be added according to your finishing requirements. Captions can help users to identify individual Print Items which are assigned to specific Orders for example. Captions can also contain static or dynamically generated text. The user can define where Captions are be placed and with which font, size, color and positioning as well.
Captions are available in all Impose Modes. In the Impose Editor you will find Captions under the Captions [2] settings area of the Marks tab [1].
Figure 1: Below we see the Impose Editor with the Marks tab and the corresponding Captions settings.
General information about the Impose Editor regarding the user interface and the individual Impose Modes can be found in the following articles:
The handling of Captions was implemented to create a very flexible solution. The following description will illustrate this concept in more detail.
- Multiple use: The same Caption can be used several times in an imposition. It is probably also clear that different Captions can be applied in the Impose Editor.
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Caption Types: Two types of Captions are available. These are:
- Default Caption – The Default Caption provides a variety of text based settings.
- Barcode Caption – These are Captions in the form of Barcodes
Barcode Captions
Barcode Captions have not yet been implemented in the Workflow. Future versions of the Workflow will contain this feature.
Flexible Origin: Captions can be positioned at different starting points. Not all starting points can be used, depending on the Impose Mode selected. In principle, the following options are available:
- Per Print Item – The Caption is applied to each individual Print Item.
- Per Row – The Caption is applied per Row of Print Items. (Not available in Tiling Mode)
- Artboard – The Caption is applied and aligned to the Artboard.
Flexible reference point: Captions can be set to selected reference points. There are four reference points available for Captions: top, left, right, and bottom.
Flexible Position: Captions can be set to the different positions. Depending on the selected Impose Mode, the following positions are available:
- ImageBox – Describes the End Format (trimmed size).
- ImageBox + Bleed –
- Overlap – Describes the additional area needed for gluing individual tiles.
- Printed Overlap –
All information on the X offset and Y offset thus refer to the selected position.
Figure 2: Below we see the section for selecting the Origin, Position and the X and Y Offset.
- Flexible Dimensions: All Captions can be adjusted according to the size of Caption needed. You can even make your company's corporate typeface available in the Workflow via the Font Manager.
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Flexible Color Settings: Depending on the selected type of Caption, the color of the text and the Barcode as well as the background of the Barcode can be set separately. The user can determine which color the Caption should have. The following options are available:
- CMYK Color Values – The color value is set by entering the CMYK values.
- System-wide Spot Colors – The color value can be set to a system-wide defined Spot Color in the Workflow.
- Static and dynamic markings: Captions can use static and dynamic content. The following chart below shows which metadata from the Workflow can be accessed.
Figure 3: The available dynamic placeholders available in Tiling mode.
2. Adding and Deleting Captions
Adding Captions is possible using the Impose Editor or by selecting a Impose Template in Force Print or a Hotfolder.
In the Impose Editor, Captions can currently only be added under the Captions [4] settings area of the Marks [3] tab.
Figure 4: The Captions settings are available after selecting a Caption under the Marks tab.
2.1. Add a Caption
Proceed as follows to add a Caption:
- Click on the Marks tab [5].
- Click on Add Caption [6] and select the Default Caption.
Figure 5: Selecting Default Caption in the drop-down menu of the Captions settings.
- Select Default Caption, and a [Caption] placeholder is placed and displayed by default for each Print Item.
- If you want to add another Caption, repeat the last step.
- The content, position and shape of the Caption can be set in the parameters of the Caption. The available options and parameters which can be set are covered in more detail here Default Caption Settings and here Barcode Caption Settings.
Changing the your Caption afterwards
You cannot directly change the Caption that you have added to your imposition, you can only add new Captions and delete the old Captions that are no longer needed.
2.2. Deleting a Caption
Proceed as follows to delete a Caption:
- Click on the Marks tab [7].
- Under the Captions settings, all currently used Captions are displayed with their corresponding parameters.
- You can delete the Caption by clicking on the X symbol [8].
Figure 6: The Caption settings are visible under the Default Caption header.
Undoing deleted Captions
If you have unintentionally deleted a Caption, you cannot reapply the Caption by using the Undo command. If this is the case, you must select the Caption again and reenter the desired settings.