Design & Print

[sinus]

Hi,

I know, that D&P is NOT a tool like Adobes InDesign or so. 

But it is also a strong tool.
Now I have a special task to solve.

I have 200 images.
Each images comes on one page with text, the sort order is given.
Every page is equal.

So this is a perfect task for D&P, and there the "Dynamic Templates".
I tried it and 200 pages will be created in about 1 minute! very nicely.

Now the problem:

For image number 60 and numer 112 the page should be different designed.

Means:
image 1-59 the same layout, say A
image 60 another layout (the printed image size should be bigger), say B
image 61 - 111 the same layout again, A
image 112 another layout, B
image 113 - 200 the same laout again. A

If these two files 60 and 112 could be printed at the end of the book, I could work simply with 2 groups.
But these two files should be in the correct order (year), what means inside the other pages.

See the attachement, this order should be the same, but the images in red rectangle should be much bigger.

Does anybody has a clever solution for this or this simply not possbible? (with a dynamic template).

[Mario]

Two solutions:

1. Show/Hide containers based on the page number.
2. Show/Hide entire based on the page number.

For example, if you have page A and B and you set the hidden property of page A to

{Print.Group.PageNumber|is:5,1,0}

and B to the inverse:

{Print.Group.PageNumber|is:5,0,1}

Page A is shown, except when the page number is 5. In that case, page B is shown instead.

[sinus]

Wow, cool, thank you, Mario.

I will try this at home.
To be honest, I did not think, that this can be done.

But I will try it and report it here. I am curious, if this really works ... but if the master says is, then it will be true. 

And specialy thanks for the variable-examples! 

[Mario]

See the help for the Hidden property for additional details and examples.
You can also show/hide individual containers using variables.
This generates some very impressive and flexible ways to use dynamic layouts.

[sinus]

A short summary, maybe helps others once:

Thanks to Mario I could get it work ... variables are the magic!

But it was not easy.
-I have 2 group-pages - layout, one for left pages, one for right.
-144 Files to be printed, only 1 image per page
-the sort order is per year
-2 images should have another layout, neatly in the sort order
-image page 16 and image page 63 should have another layout, hence odd and even pages

So, I copied the right page first and putted this variable in the page-hidden-field (not in the container-field, because it worked not or I did it wrong)
{Print.Document.PageNumber|is:16,0,1}

Success!!
For the image on page 16 D&P took the copied page and made the image big. Perfect.

So I copied the left page and did the same, with this variable:
{Print.Document.PageNumber|is:63,0,1}

Hm, curious, worked not.
I tried and tried, no success.

Then, do not ask why, I changed the order from the pages ... peng, success! GREAT, it worked now as expected.
Attachement 1 is the changed sort order of the pages, what worked.

The result: attachement 2, the red rectangles are the big images and the green rectrangle shows left and right page-numbers.

Mario, thanks a lot, solved!

BTW: if I add one or more pages (maybe a title or impressum), then I have to change the variables, because the variable does work with the page-numbers.
Hence I thought, it is better working with file-number. Hence I tried the variable
{Print.File.Index}

But with this variable it worked not. MAYBE D&P creates first the page, then the files and hence it cannot work.
At least Mario has solved my problem, thanks for this! 

It is really astonishing, what D&P can do! To be hones, I thought  not, that this is possible.
If I compare this special case here, I think, this would be much more work with for example Adobe's InDesign. That is, because I can use here the dynamic approach, what is cool. If I have 10 or 500 images: no difference!









{Print.File.Index}

[Mario]

This variable {Print.File.Index} is incremented per file when IMatch layouts the page.
You cannot use variables like this on a page level. See the documentation for details.

Tip: If you think one of your variables "does not work", put a text container on the page that shows the contents of the variable. This way you can see what is going on.
Controlling the page flow per variables is an advanced feature and pretty much unique to IMatch. You can expect that you have to do some experiments to achieve what you need.

[sinus]

Yep, Mario,

this is really unique, I think, and we can do quite sophisticated things.

Thanks to IMatch my "special wish" from my client is solved! 

[ubacher]

If Consumes File could also be variable driven the utility of D&P could again be increased.
One could then print a (panorama) file across two pages and other files on single pages.
I recall from a previous discussion that this was not possible because of the way D&P processes
files. 

Thinking this over I thought about how one could maybe accomplish this with the HIDDEN setting.
I think this might work if we had a way of using a HIDDEN layout which however does consume a file.
Is there some way to do this?

[Mario]

Hidden pages or containers do not consume files. They are ignored in the page flow.