Designer basics

The FlexMail designer offers you a fully integrated environment to design your mailpiece. You simply point and click to add objects to a layout and select a wide variety of formatting options directly from the ribbon.

The Designer displays a page in the selected page size on your screen. You can select any page size you want. FlexMail automatically shows the non-printable margin for that page size on the currently selected printer.

With the mouse you add any element you want to your design. Add text, graphics, barcodes or shapes without limitation. Select any formatting option you get the appearance you want.

This article describes the basic steps to make a design:

 

Selecting your printer

Before you start with the actual design, it is important that you select the printer that you are going to use to print the project on, because the printer determines the paper sizes available, the printable area, available printer fonts, and other printer specific features.

FlexMail displays the currently selected printer on the right-hand side of the Status Bar at the bottom of your screen. To change the printer:

  1. Click on the Printer name on the status bar at the bottom of your screen.

    -or-

    On the Designer tab, in the Printer group, click Select.

  2. In the Print Setup window, select the printer you are using.

    If the printer you want to use is not in the list, you first have to install a printer driver for it. To install one of the drivers supplied with FlexMail, select the File tab and then select Add Printer in the Options group.

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Page setup

The next step before creating the layout of your items is to select the correct paper size. All paper sizes are supported. The maximum and minimum sizes are only limited by the printer you have selected. FlexMail also supports designing and printing labels. For more infomation see Using labels

To change the paper size:

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Inserting objects

With the mouse you add any element you want to your design. Add text, graphics, barcodes or shapes without limitation. Select any formatting option you need to adapt the appearance.

  1. On the Designer tab, click the type of object that you want to insert in the Insert group. For example, if you want to add a text box, click Text Box.

    The cursor will change from an arrow to a cross.

  2. Click where you want to insert the object.The position where you click will be the top-left corner of the surrounding frame of the object.

  3. For all object (except Autoshapes) a window will open were you can specify the contents and other options for the object.

  4. When you are finished with your settings, click OK.

The object will now be added to the design. You can now do any or all of the following:

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