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Contents
Smart Address V3 - Printing Overview

Overview

The printing facilities of Smart Address are very comprehensive, but a few general principles apply whatever you want to print.

1 	Decide on the paper type and size that you want to use - whether it is an envelope (what size?), a label (how many per sheet?) or a standard or custom size of paper for a listing of some kind.

2 	Using the Page Designer, place the required fields (that will later contain the data - name, address etc.) onto your chosen paper type, add any graphics if required and save the design as a new 'Page Layout'.

3 	Use the Print Wizard to create a set of selections of what is to be printed, using the Page Layout just created. You can either print directly as the last stage of the Print Wizard or you can save the set of selections as a 'Quick Report' that you can use to repeat the printing rapidly and easily in the future.

This short tutorial will take you through the process of creating and printing a single envelope, a set of labels and a complete listing of all the addresses in an address book.

Printing an address onto an envelope

Printing a parcel label

Printing a listing from an address book

In conclusion

We hope that you have found this tutorial useful in getting acquainted with the printing facilities of Smart Address v3 and that it has answered any queries that you may have. It might be worth printing the tutorial sections out as an aid while you experiment.


Printing an address onto an envelope

1. Using the Page Designer to create a new Page Layout for an envelope

You should first make sure that the printer you wish to use is set up as the default printer under windows. We will use a DL envelope for this first part of the Tutorial, but you could easily use any other size of envelope.

Open the Page Designer ('File | Page Designer') and select 'New'. Type a descriptive name for the new Page Layout in the 'Name' box (e.g. 'Standard DL envelope'). Now open the 'Paper Size' selection box by clicking on the down arrow to the right of the box. Select 'Envelope DL, 110 x 220mm' from the list. Choose 'OK'.

Maximise the Page Designer. In the 'Data Palette' the field names correspond to your default address book field names, which you have set to those in Example.adr. Click on the junction between the two rulers so that the measurements are metric (if the rulers aren't visible use the 'Tools | Show Rulers' menu command).

In the Data Palette, single-click on each of the first three fields (Title, First Name and Surname). Each of the three fields remain selected. Move the pointer over the page area (you will notice it changes to a hand holding a +) and click where you want the first line of the address - probably at about 7cm across and 5cm down. The fields making up the first line of the address appear on the page.

In the Data Palette, single-click on each of the next three fields (Position, Company and Address), move the pointer over the page and click just under the first line of the address. The remaining fields in the address appear. You will notice these fields appear under one another by default - this allows the address to print without gaps where there is no data in one of the fields.

Select the first line of the address by clicking on it, hold down the 'Shift' key and click anywhere inside the last three lines of the address. Both address blocks are now selected.

Choose the 'Objects | Change Text Font…' menu command, change the address font to Arial, Bold, 14pt and choose 'OK'. Click on the page outside the address blocks to deselect them. The increase in font size now requires you to resize the address blocks. Select the first line block and increase the length of the block by 'grabbing' the centre handle (small black square) on the right with the mouse and moving it across to about the 19cm ruler mark.

In the same way, increase the height of the first line address block so all the text is visible.

Select the second address block, containing the last three address fields and move it (by dragging with the mouse) so it is positioned just under the first address line. Grab the centre bottom handle of the second address block and pull it downwards as far as it will go.

Now select both address blocks by shift-clicking and choose the 'Objects | Align Objects | Left Edges' menu command. The left edges of the two address blocks line up. Choose the 'Objects | Size…' menu command and in the Size dialogue, under 'Width', click on the 'Grow to Largest' radio button and choose 'OK'. Now both address blocks should be the same width and aligned correctly, although you may need to adjust the two separate blocks so that the space between them is correct. You can check this by bringing up the Print Preview window ('Tools | Preview…' menu command or the Preview toolbar button)

If you want a return address on your envelope this can be added from the 'Object Palette'. First define the text for the Return Address via the 'Tools | Set Return Address…' menu command. Then click on the 'Objects' tab in the bottom left of the Page Designer window and click on the 'Return Mail Address' button in the Object Palette. Position the pointer at about 2cm across and 1.5cm down on the page and click to insert the Return Address. The Return Address font can be changed if required by again choosing the 'Objects | Change Text Font…'  menu command or clicking on the 'Change Field Font' toolbar button.

Note:	In the Object Palette that there are buttons for adding graphics and images to your design if required.

Save the Page Layout ('File | Save Layout') and close the Page Designer

2.  Using the Print Wizard

Start the Print Wizard via the 'File | Print' menu command. Click 'Next' on the first page. On the second page the default selection is 'Address book entries' and this is correct for printing to an envelope. Click 'Next'.

On the following page the default is to print all entries in the address book. Click on 'Selected Entry Only' and click on 'Next'

(Note: If you want to print several envelopes with different addresses you can select 'All Tagged Entries in the Address Book' on this page of the Print Wizard.
Before printing you should 'Tag' addresses by highlighting the entry in the Index List in the main Smart Address window and pressing 'Ctrl-T'. You can also 'Tag' addresses by double-clicking an entry in the Index List, or by using the 'Tools | Tag Entry' menu command.)

As we are only printing one address, we accept the defaults the following page of the Print Wizard which deals with the print order, Click on 'Next' again.

Now select the Page Layout to be used. Click on the down arrow to the right of the selection box and select the Page Layout that you prepared earlier. Click on 'Next'.

The next Print Wizard page determines the number of copies to be printed. Click on 'Next'

The next page asks if you want to save the settings as a 'Quick Report'. Quick Reports are an essential feature of Smart Address to use for easy printing. They enable you to save all the choices you have made with the Print Wizard to a single named report, so next time you want to print a single address to a DL envelope you just have to print the Quick Report without going all the way through the Print Wizard. Click on 'Save Settings as a "Quick Report"?' and click 'Next'. In the 'Report Name' box, type 'Selected entry to DL envelope'.

The two other check boxes on this page allow you to assign your Quick Report to one of two special toolbar buttons. Put a tick in the first checkbox next to the white printer icon. Click on 'Next'.

You can preview your envelope before printing with the following page of the Print Wizard. Put a tick in the 'Preview before printing?' check box and click on 'Preview'. The preview will be of the entry that is currently selected in the main Smart Address Index List.

(Note: If you find later that you want to change the settings in a Quick Report, you can do this by choosing the 'File | Quick Reports…' menu command and then choosing the 'Edit' button.)

3.  Testing the print

Different printers use many differing orientations for envelope printing. With your printer you may have to insert envelopes face-down or face-up, to the left or to the right (or centre) of the printer bed. You may have to print in landscape or portrait orientation. Because of this it is always best to perform a trial printing of each new envelope size to make sure your settings are correct. Smart Address can be configured to allow for most envelope orientations.

For the trial print do not use an envelope. Instead, use a sheet of normal-sized paper (e.g. A4). This will show you exactly where the address prints (if it is not correct) so that adjustments can be made.

If you still have the Print Preview window open at the end of the Print Wizard, you can test the print by choosing the 'File | Print' menu command, or by clicking on the 'Print' toolbar button. If however you have closed the Print Wizard you can test the print by clicking on the special 'Print First Linked Quick Report' toolbar button in the Smart Address main window (the fifth button from the left). Print the selected address.

(Note: If you have defined several Quick Reports you cannot assign more than two of them to the special toolbar buttons. However, by using the keyboard shortcut 'Ctrl-P' (or the 'File | Quick Reports…' menu command), you can choose a Quick Report from a list and print from this dialogue.)

Examine the print of the address. Is it correctly positioned with regard to how you normally insert envelopes into your printer?

If it is not correct, you will need to use the 'Paper Size Maintenance' procedure. You access this by starting the Page Designer and choosing the 'File | Paper Setup…' menu command. In the 'Available Paper Sizes' list, select 'Envelope DL, 110 x 220mm' and click 'Edit'. Change the envelope feed options to correct the wrong address placement and try the print test again. You should be able to get it right in a couple of tests.

After completing this part of the Tutorial you should be able to successfully print any entry in an address book to an envelope. By choosing other selections in the Print Wizard you can define further Quick Reports to print other selections of address entries to envelopes. For instance you can:

•	Print all Tagged entries as described in the note under 'Using the Print Wizard' above.

•	Print several envelopes with the same address (choose to print several copies in the Print Wizard).

•	Define a Quick Report that prints to a Page Layout that includes a Return Address.

•	Define Quick Reports for each envelope size that you use regularly.

•	Perform a search in Smart Address to show a certain category of entries in the Index List and then print an envelope for each entry.

Back to Overview


Printing a parcel label

In the second part of the Tutorial we will be a bit more adventurous and use graphics to enhance a label design. Your final design should look like this:

1.  Using the Page Designer to create a new Page Layout for a label

Open the Page Designer and select 'New'. In the 'Name' box type 'Parcel Label' and from the drop-down 'Paper Type' box select 'Label'. From the drop-down 'Paper Size' box select 'Avery L7165 Address Label' and choose 'OK' to open the new Page Layout.

Add the first line of the address field, by clicking on the 'Title', 'First Name' and 'Surname' buttons in the Date Palette and then clicking on the label design at about 12mm down and 12mm across. Select this field by clicking on it and increase its size so that the right edge is at about 85mm across and the bottom edge is at 18mm down.

(Note: Positioning of fields and graphics is made very much easier if you use the Alignment Grid facility. Access it via the 'Tools | Set Alignment Grid…' menu command. Put a tick in the 'Enable Grid Alignment' check box and objects on the page will now 'snap' to an invisible grid when moved or resized. A grid size of between 2 and 5 is usually best.)

Add the rest of the address, containing the 'Position', 'Company' and 'Address' fields directly under the first line of the address. Drag the bottom of this field downwards to about 48mm down and select both parts of the address by shift-clicking. Using the alignment and sizing controls as before, line up the left edges of the two address blocks and size the bottom one to be the same width as the top line.

Still keeping both address blocks selected, right-click inside either block and choose 'Align Text | Centre' from the pop-up menu. Right-click again in the selections and this time choose the 'Change Text Font…' command. Set the font to Arial, Bold, 11pt. And choose 'OK'.

(Note: With a simple label, this would be all you would have to do to complete the design. You could use this Page Layout to print any single address from an address book or a set of tagged entries.)

Now to add the graphics. Click on the 'Objects' tab of the Palette, click on 'Rectangle' and click on the page just to the left of the address block. A white rectangle with a black border appears by default. Click on the rectangle and resize it by grabbing the bottom right handle and dragging so the area of the rectangle covers the address block completely.

With the rectangle still selected click on the 'Object Property Editor' toolbar button (the one fourth from the right). All objects in the Page Designer, whether they are graphics or text can be altered with the 'Object Property Editor', which can also be displayed from the 'Objects | Property Editor…' menu command or from the right-click pop-up menu.

We will make a grey box with a thick dark red border, but you can experiment with many different colour and pattern combinations. In the 'Rectangle Property Editor' window set the 'Border' width to 5 pixels. The 'Border Style' box lists many different types of border (dotted, dashed etc.), but these styles are only available when the border width is set to 1 pixel, so this box is disabled now.

Click on the arrow to the right of the 'Border Colour' box and select the Dark Red colour (the second stripe down).

The 'Interior Style' box is set to 'Solid Colour' by default, and this will suit us fine, but notice that there are many other patterns available.

From the 'Internal Colour' box, select the Light Grey colour and click on 'OK' to change the rectangle properties.

Adjust the size and position of the rectangle if necessary and then right-click on it to bring up the pop-up menu. Choose 'Send to Back' from the menu. The address block reappears in front of the rectangle, with the fields on a white background with a thin white border (although you can't see the border). This white background is the default for a text or field box, but can be changed with the Property Editor.

Select one of the two address blocks and bring up the Property Editor. Set the 'Border Width' to '0' and the 'Background Style' to 'Clear' (the second stripe in the drop-down list). Then select the other address block and set its properties to the same.

(Note: You cannot set the properties for both blocks at the same time as the Property Editor is only available when a single object is selected.)

After you have adjusted the border and background of the address blocks they may still be visible as white boxes over the grey rectangle. Try turning off the 'Tools | Show Borders' menu command and they should disappear.

Now position another grey rectangle with a red border at the top of the label design (see the screenshot above), and use the 'Objects | Send to Back' menu command to position it behind the first rectangle.

All that remains is to make the return address box. Although the Page Designer has a button to insert a Return Address field, you can only define one Return Address text using this feature. However you can place any text directly onto a Page Layout.

Click on the 'Text' button in the 'Object Palette' and then click on the page below the lower rectangle. Immediately the 'Static Text Property Editor' appears. In the 'Text' box type - 'If undelivered please return to' and then press the 'Enter' key. Then type your address on one line below.

(Note: In the illustrated example, special characters are used to separate each word. This 'Centre Spot' character can be inserted by holding down the 'Alt' key and pressing 0149 on the numeric keypad.)

In the 'Static Text Property Editor', set the 'Border Colour' to Dark Red, the 'Border Width' to 5 pixels, the 'Background Style' to solid and the 'Background Colour' to Light Grey. Click on 'OK'.

Resize and position the Text Box and align the text to 'Centre' if necessary. Click on the 'Change Field Font…' toolbar button and reset the font to Arial, Bold, 9pt, Blue.

(Note: You may have to choose a different size of font depending how long your address is.)

Preview your label design, make any adjustments, save the Page Layout and close the Page Designer

2.  Using the Print Wizard with labels

The Print Wizard procedure for labels is very similar to that for envelopes. The major difference comes after the page which asks you to choose the Page Layout for the print. If you choose a Page Layout based on a Label design the following page has a number of choices applicable to labels rather than envelopes.

(Note: One of the strengths of Smart Address v3 is that it is so flexible and this page of the Print Wizard is a good example. You are given the choice of printing a full sheet of labels per entry (ideal when you have an address to which you regularly send), a complete row of labels for each entry, or any specified number of labels per entry.)

Click on the 'Enable Prompt for Starting Label Number' check box. It is always a good idea to enable this feature as it allows you to print on part-used sheets of labels. You should use caution when doing this as labels can occasionally come off the backing sheet in the printer when re-used, especially with Laser printers. The resulting repair can be very expensive.

Again you should save the settings as a 'Quick Report' and preview the labels before printing.

3.  Previewing and testing label printing

When printing a series of different addresses, pay particular attention to the ones with more address lines, or longer address lines than usual, to see that the lines are there and not clipped. If this happens you might have to go back to your label design in Page Designer and either increase the size of the box(es) around the address fields or decrease the size of the font used.

The Print Preview facilities can be very useful when sorting out clipping problems. There is a useful and undocumented shortcut to using the Print Preview - If you have assigned a Quick Report to one of the Special Linked toolbar buttons, you may invoke the Print Preview by holding down the 'Shift' key as you click the button (but this doesn't currently work on Windows/NT).

As with envelopes, you should test on plain paper first and hold the resulting print up behind a sheet of labels to check for any misalignment before finally printing to labels themselves.

Labels are very useful when mailing non-standard envelopes, parcels and packets or a mixture of mailing items. They are also useful when sending Mailshots, Mailing Lists or other large-quantity mailings, such as Christmas Cards. Besides a personalised parcel label you might design other labels, using a variety of label types and sizes for other uses. Using labels can be time-consuming unless you have some pre-designed Page Layouts and Quick Reports to speed the process up.

Back to Overview


Printing a listing from an address book

The ability to print lists of entries is normal with any address book programme. However, Smart Address v3 goes much further than this. Not only can you print lists of names, addresses, phone and fax numbers, E-mail addresses and any notes associated with the entries, you can also print out a diary of events for the next day, week, month or any period. You can also print lists of reminders, or logs of telephone calls.

In this tutorial we will print a list of all the entries in the Example.adr book, with their addresses, phone numbers and accompanying notes.

1.  Using the Page Designer to create a new Page Layout for a listing

Open the Page Designer and select 'New'. In the 'Name' box type 'Listing with Notes' and from the drop-down 'Paper Type' box select 'Listing'. The details in the Paper Size' box should match the paper setup of your printer.

(Note: With a Listing, there are further choices in the 'Page Control' group box and you can also set the printer page orientation. )

Click on the 'Landscape Orientation' radio button to set the printer orientation and choose 'OK' The new Page Layout opens. Maximise the Page Designer to see as much of the page as possible.

You will notice immediately a black line about 3cm down from the top of the page. This is the Header indication - any text or fields placed above this line (which can be moved with the mouse) will print on every page of the listing. There is similarly a Footer at the bottom of the page.

Click on the 'Objects' tab of the Palette and click on the 'Text' button. Now click in the top part of the page above the header line. The 'Static Text Property Editor' dialogue appears. In the 'Text' box, type - 'Example Address Book'. If you would like some colour in your listing choose suitable colours in the 'Border' and 'Background' settings boxes, and click on 'OK'. Resize the text box and alter the font to suit your taste.
Scroll to the bottom of the page, click on the 'Page Number' palette button and click on the page below the Footer line, somewhere near the centre. The 'Page Number' field appears.

Scroll to the right-hand edge of the bottom of the page and in the same way, insert a Static Text Field with the word 'Printed:'. Click on the 'Date Printed' palette button and click directly after the text field. Now select the three fields in the Footer by shift-clicking them and align them by clicking on the 'Align Tops' toolbar button. You could also change the text font for the three fields if you wish.

Now scroll to the top of the page and click back to the 'Data' Palette. Click on the 'Title', 'First Name' and 'Surname' buttons and click just below the Header line at about 10mm across on the top ruler. The first three fields appear on the page, accompanied by an indication (as a hatched box) of where each record will appear on the page below them.

Click on the 'Position' and 'Company' buttons in the Data Palette and then click just below the first three fields and slightly inset from them. Left-align the text if necessary

Enlarge both these field boxes by moving their right-hand edges to about the 60mm mark on the top ruler, and change the colour of the font in the first line to a noticeable colour to make the listing easier to read.

Now click on the 'Address' button in the Data Palette and click on the page just to the right of the first line fields and in line across the page. The address field is inserted, but you will notice it is a squarish box rather than a long rectangle, as were the previous fields. This is because, by default, the address field is inserted as a 'Multi-Line Merge' field. As we are working in landscape format we should convert this to a 'Single Line Merge' field. Right-click on the address field and choose the 'Property Editor…' command from the pop-up menu. Click the 'Single Line Merge' radio button in the Property Editor dialogue and click on 'OK'. Enlarge the length of the field to about the 110mm mark on the top ruler and make its height about the same as the first two fields added together.

(Note: When lining up fields by shift-clicking, the field that is selected first does not move.)

In a similar way, add text, telephone number, fax and notes fields to complete the listing Page Layout as illustrated below. Notice that colour can make the listings more readable (if you have a colour printer).

Once again check with the Print Preview that all entries are not clipped before saving the new Page Layout.

2.  Using the Print Wizard with listings

Printing listings with the Print Wizard, and saving Print Wizard selections as Quick Reports are essentially no different from envelopes, except that, on the second page on the Print Wizard you are given a choice of using 'Address Book Entries', Address Book Reminders' or 'Address Book Telephone Logs'. The last two of these choices are particularly relevant to printing listings.

Having designed and printed the Page Layout above you will realise that the designing of listings layouts is a matter of a few steps only - decide on a page format, put text and fields in the header and footer, and finally organise and line up data fields at the top of the first page. Smart Address will do the rest.

Back to Overview