Create Your Own Greetings Cards Starter Guide

Create Your Own Greetings Cards Starter Guide

Contents This Guide is separated into the following sections. 1. Internet Palette 2. Getting Started 3. Using the pre-designed Templates 4. Opening existing designs 5. Starting a new design. a. Adding Text b. Adding Clipart / image c. Changing Background Colour 6. Printing / Emailing the finished design.

Internet Palette The Internet Palette function can be activated and deactivated whilst running the program by pressing the F10 key on your keyboard alternatively you can click on the View menu and select the option from the functions listed. The Internet palette allows the user to browse the web whilst running the program. You can then click & drag images from the website you are visiting onto your card design. If you have installed the program with the option to show the Internet palette selected, the program will attempt to dial your Internet connection whilst starting. If you do not wish to connect to the web then cancel the dial up request when prompted, the program will continue to load and may request the dial up connection a second time again cancel the request. You do not need to connect to the Internet to use this program, only to actively make use of the Internet palette.

Getting Started After installing the program, to run the software, click on START, and then select PROGRAMS. Locate Create Your Own Greeting Cards and finally click on the icon for Create Your Own Greeting Cards. After a few seconds the following menu should appear on screen. From this screen you have 4 options to choose from. Click on Create new design if you wish to create your own unique card style. Select New from template if you wish to use a pre designed card style. To open a previously saved file click, on Open Existing design. Finally select Exit to quit the program.

New From Template This option allows you to load one of the 110 pre-designed cards included with the program. After selecting New From Template from the front screen the following menu should appear. a) Double click on a folder to list the card designs. b) Click once on a Card design name to view the preview (see example below), if you are happy with the preview click on OPEN and the chosen card will appear in the main program screen. c) Otherwise click on an alternative card design. To go back to the main list of Template folders click on the small button indicated by the black Arrow. You should then be able to view the original list of template folders from where you can select an alternative subject of templates.

Open Existing Design This option will allow you to open a pre-saved design. By default the program will start by looking inside your My Documents folder as this is the programs preferred save location. In this window only saved files will be shown. Click on your saved file and the preview should then be shown, click on Open to load the file or double click on the filename and the design should then load. To change where the open menu is looking; click on the small button indicated by the Black arrow and then select the drive you have saved the file to. The contents of the drive should then be shown. Double click on the folder location where you have saved the file to and the filename should then be listed. Click on the Filename for the design and then click on the Open button to load.

Create a New Design. After selecting this option the following menu will appear. Within this menu you can choose the style of card you wish to create and confirm what paper size you are using. It is vital that you select the correct paper size otherwise when you print from the program the design may be printed incorrectly. To select a card type click on the name shown, to change the paper size, click on the shown paper size and select the suitable match from the drop down menu. Then click on the Set Minimum button, click OK when prompted and finally click on the OK button to continue from this screen.

Adding & Editing Text on your Design How do I add text to my card design? To add text to the card design click on the A icon on the toolbar and then click and drag a text box onto the card design. If you do not understand how to click and drag, essentially place the mouse cursor on a corner of the card design press and hold the left mouse button down and then move the mouse in an opposite direction and a box should appear This box will dictate the size of the text on the design. Once you are happy with the size release the left mouse button. A red vertical line should appear this is the text cursor, type the text that you want to add. After which before you can move or alter the text in any way you need to click on the Pick tool icon which is the black Arrow icon at the top of the list above the A icon on the toolbar. How do I change the style & size of my text? To alter / change the text itself once entered. The best method is to access text properties, which only becomes available after you enter Text to the card design. After entering text onto the design click on the Pick tool icon (this is the black arrow icon at the top of the Insert toolbar which by default appears on the left hand side of the program screen) once you have selected the pick tool icon there are 2 ways to bring up the Text Properties. Either double left click on the Text or Right click on the text and select properties from the list that appears. The Text Properties menu will appear. see image below. (Please note that you do have to literally click on the text itself).

The Following options are available from the Text Properties menu. FONT TAB of text properties dialogue controls the following options: Font Lets you choose font name. Font style Lets you control font style. Choose from Normal, Bold, Italic and Bold Italic styles. Font script Lets you control font script. Choose from languages supported by font. POSITION TAB OF object properties dialogue lets you control the position of centre point, width and height of the object. ALIGNMENT TAB of text properties dialogue lets you control the position of a text inside the text frame. Margins Lets you choose the width of margins. Horizontal Lets you control horizontal alignment. Vertical Lets you control vertical alignment. Wrap Text Adjusts the number of words to the length of the line when you resize text. Keep Font Ratio Allows you to keep the ratio of characters when you resize text. Lock font size Allows you to keep the size of text when you move it using text object handles. You cannot apply this option to a text on the curve.

FORM TAB of text properties dialogue controls horizontal and vertical scale coefficient, rotation angle and angle of horizontal skew. TEXT TAB of text properties dialogue allows you to enter and edit text. Click on Apply to confirm changes to the text entered here. WARP EFFECT TAB of shape and text properties dialogues has the following options: Choose warp type: Lets you select the type of warp effect. Warp effect is a transformation applied to a shape or text. Warp preview: Lets you preview how a warp effect would look like. Window displays warp effect applied to a rectangle. You cannot apply this option to a text on the curve. POSITION TAB of text properties dialogue lets you control the position of centre point, width and height of the text. COLOUR TAB of text properties dialogue controls the colour and outline of the object. The tab has the following options: Uniform Fills an object with uniform colour. By clicking this and then Colour buttons you change uniform fill colour. Linear gradient Fills an object with linear gradient. Click it to display Linear Gradient Options. Elliptic gradient Fills an object with elliptic gradient. Click it to display Elliptic Gradient Options. Disable Disables fill. Synchronize with transparency. Synchronizes gradient settings with linear or elliptic transparency settings. No Outline Disables outline. Colour Selects outline colour. Width Selects width of solid outlines. Style Selects outline style. Choose between solid outline and four types of dashed outlines.

Inserting Images Create Your Own greeting Cards includes 10,000 Clipart images. These images are located on the CD-ROM, the following instructions should help you to locate and insert the clipart from the CD-ROM onto your design To load the clipart onto your card design Click on the INSERT menu and select IMAGE. Click and drag a box on your Document as large as you wish the image to appear. (If you do not understand how to click and drag, essentially place the mouse cursor on a corner of the card design press and hold the left mouse button down and then move the mouse in an opposite direction and a box should appear then let go of the mouse button when the box is of the desired size.). An Import Graphics window should then appear on screen. By default the program will initially look at its own installation folder. You will need to redirect it to look at the Create Your Own Greeting Cards CD-ROM. Click inside the look in box (As indicated by the black arrow on the picture below). From the list that appears you should see a reference to cyogtcrd this is the name of the Greeting card CD-ROM click once on this icon. You should then see the clipart folder icon listed, double click on this icon, the clipart categories should then be listed (Example below)

Double click on a category folder to view the images within, click on an image file icon and you should then see a preview of the selected image appear (Example below). To use this image click on the Open button the selected image should then appear on the design. As below.

Changing the background Colour. To change the background colour of your card design click on the Edit menu and then select Background options the following menu should appear. Ensure that Print Background is checked. To change the colour click on the Button as indicated by the black arrow.

After clicking on the Colour button the following screen will appear. Within this screen you can either select one of the basic colours or create a custom colour. Click on the colour shown to select, then click on OK to confirm. To create a custom colour, first select a basic colour and then click on the Rainbow effect on the right hand side. If you click & drag the mouse around the Rainbow effect and you will notice that the large colour box will change this will be your selected colour. If you wish to use this colour click on the Add to Custom Colours button. Your choice of colour will then appear in the list of Custom Colours. To use this colour click on it and then click on OK. You can use the shade / tint slider bar to finer tune your custom colour in terms of shade. (As indicated by the black arrow) The chosen colour will then be applied to your current page. Only the current selected page will be changed to the chosen colour.

Emailing / Printing your finished design Emailing your design. You can email your finished design either as an executable program (this allows any one to view the finished design without needing the Greetings Card Program.) or as a Greeting card document. (The recipient must have the program installed in order to view the document.) Click on the File menu and select send card in order to send the card as an executable program. Select Send from the File menu to send the card as a standard document file Both options will attempt to access your email program and prepare a blank email message with the appropriate format of document-attached ready to be sent. Printing your design To print your finished design click on the File menu and select Print. To check how your finished design will appear before printing select Print Preview from the File menu. To double-check the paper size settings prior to printing, select the Page Setup option from the File menu. You can also disable the Fold Line option from this menu. This will prevent the program printing a small black line to indicate where the card / paper should be folded. Further in depth instructions and explanations can be obtained by accessing the Help topics for the program. To access the help at any time in the program press the F 1 key on your keyboard.