General Effects

Controls in the General Effects toolbar can be applied to any items, of any types. These controls are enabled whenever the Layout tab is visible and at least one item is selected.

This page lists all of the General Effects controls and their uses.

Background: Setting a background color

By default, items do not display any background. For example, a text item that overlapped an image item would show the text printed directly on the image, with no frame or background to obscure the image.

You can change this by selecting the Background option, at the left end of the General Effects toolbar. When this option is selected, the item's rectangle will be painted with a specified color before its contents (text or image) are printed.

The Background controls.

To specify the color, click the color well control to open the Color Panel, and then select a color from the Color Panel. You can make your background translucent by using the Opacity slider in the Color Panel.

Corner Radius

The background color by default is painted as a round-cornered rectangle. You can adjust the corner curvature by entering values in the Corner Radius fields. The values you enter can be interpreted either as absolute values in 72dpi points, or as percentages relative to the size of the item. Use the Corner Radius "pts/%" control to select points or percent.

For example: Entering 0 for both X and Y values yields an unrounded rectangle. Entering half the item's width and height (if in points) or 50 (if percent) yields an oval or circle.

Note that if you use points as the units, these values are not scaled if the item's size is altered. If you use percentage, they are scaled.

Margin Control (adding borders to items)

By default, image items will scale the image to exactly fit within the item's rectangle, while text items will automatically fit the text into a slightly smaller area, leaving a small margin around the text.

The Margin controls.

Select Margin and enter a width in points it the text field to specify a margin width that will be added to the default margins, leaving a wider space around the content within the item's rectangle.

Note that this will reduce the content area of the item. There will be less room for text, and images will be smaller than if you used no margin. To add a margin but keep the same content size, make the item larger to compensate for the margin width by adding twice the margin width to the width and height of the item.

By default, the margin area is not colored, and will show either the item's background color or be transparent if the item lacks a background color. Select the Color option and use its color well to specify a margin color. The margin area will then show your selected color, forming a colored border around the item content. (This will have no effect if you are not using a non-zero margin width.)

It is actually possible to set a negative margin width. This causes a colored margin to be drawn outside of the item's rectangle. But this practice is not recommended, because the resulting content area is not usually what you'll want.

Rotating an Item

Items can be rotated in 45° increments by selecting a value from the Rotation popup in the Effects Panel.

Hide When Empty

This setting in the General Effects toolbar hides an item when its value is empty. It is mainly for use with margins and/or background color: if you have an item that sometimes contains text and sometimes is empty, and the item has a background color or margin, you may not want the item to appear when the item's value is empty.

Quick Clicks

The Basics

Creating Card Layouts

Specifying Content

Content in CSV Files

Effects

Previewing and Finding Errors

Printing

Exporting for Documentation, Print-on-Demand, and Online Gaming

Text Layout

Item Tags and Hiding Card Items

Styles, Series, and Rotors

Appendices