You will see the "Missing or invalid CSV file" in two circumstances: when you have selected "CSV" for your content source but forgotten to select a CSV file for your template, or when Multideck cannot successfully read the CSV file you have selected.

When you use CSV as your content source, Multideck requires a correctly-formatted CSV file which you must create either by using a text editor or by exporting in CSV format from a spreadsheet. See About Content to learn about content and CSV files, and see Setting Up Templates to learn how to select a CSV file that you have created.

If you have created and selected a CSV file but you are still seeing the "Missing or invalid CSV file" error, then there is something wrong with the format of your CSV file. Text encoding may be the problem; see Setting Up Templates to learn about text encoding formats. Other possible issues with CSV formatting are covered in About Content and its following chapters.

Sometimes when I open a Multideck document, I see a window with the message "Multideck needs to access this path to continue." Why does this happen, and what should I do?

Multideck needs your permission to read files on your disk, including your CSV file (if you use one) and the image files in your Image Folder. You granted that permission when you originally selected a CSV file or Image Folder, but that permission won't last forever. From time to time, you may have to grant permission again to allow Multideck to continue accessing your files.

When this happens, Multideck will ask you to grant access to the file or folder. Click the Allow button to agree.

If you refuse permission (by clicking the Cancel button), Multideck will not be able to read the file or folder. You will have to select a different CSV file or Image Folder to continue (or, if you made a mistake, select the same one again).

I want it to look like this:

But instead it looks like this:

Most likely, you are using a CSV file which is in a different text encoding than Multideck expects. You should not see this symptom if you use the Content Editor as your content source.

In the Deck tab, you must select the text encoding used in your CSV file. If you select a different text encoding then Multideck will not be able to read the CSV successfully, which may result in garbled text.

We recommend using Unicode (UTF-8), and this is what new Multideck documents expect by default. But in some cases UTF-8 may not be available or suitable. For example, we have heard that some versions of Microsoft Word for Macintosh are not able to export to CSV with UTF-8 encoding. We suggesting trying Mac OS Roman encoding in this case.

It usually doesn't matter too much which text encoding you use; it's just essential that Multideck know what the encoding actually is.

You may want to print or export only part of your deck if you only need to print some cards that have been changed, or some cards that have just been added, among other reasons.

There are two ways to choose a subset of your deck for printing or exporting: the #PrintSelected feature, and the Filter feature.

The #PrintSelected feature allows you to choose which cards to avoid printing by labeling them within your content. This approach is best when you want to "turn off" some cards, either permanently or for an extended period, without actually deleting them from your content.

Tell me more about the #PrintSelected feature.

The Filter feature is best for temporary use, because it lets you interactively exclude cards from printing and exporting by selecting them in Multideck, just before you actually print or export.

Tell me more about the Filter feature.

What are the best ways to share my work with others?

To share your decks with playtesters when you can't just hand them a deck, we recommend printing your deck to PDF. PDF files can be viewed and printed using almost any kind of personal computer. They are easy to upload, download, and share.

To print to a PDF file, start by clicking the Print button in Multideck. The standard Print panel will appear. Do not click the Print button in that panel. Instead, use the PDF popup menu button at the lower-left corner of the panel. Select "Save as PDF" from the popup menu. This will create a PDF file that you can share. (You can also keep this file yourself. You can open it in Apple's Preview app to view it, or to print physical copies.)

You have several options for sharing your PDF. If it is not too large, you can attach it to an email message. (Usually you can send attachments of up to 5 MB in size, but it varies.) If it is too large to email, or if you wish to reach a larger audience, Dropbox is a good solution.

We do not recommend attempting to share your Multideck documents. If your playtesters only need to make their own copies of your deck, sending a PDF is a much better solution. If you wish to collaborate on your deck with another designer, the best approach is to use CSV for your content source, and share your spreadsheet (Google Sheets is a good solution for this). Appoint just one of you to be in charge of using Multideck to create deck PDFs. Otherwise you may have a great deal of trouble ensuring that everyone has the latest version of the Multideck document, CSV file, and images in the Image Folder.

While we don't recommend trying to share your actual Multideck project with others (see How Can I Share My Decks? above), you may want to move your project someday, to a new location on your hard disk or to a new computer. Here's how.

First, make sure everything that your project needs is in one folder (and its subfolders, such as the Image Folder). This includes your Multideck document, its CSV files if any, and its Image Folder.

Moving on the same computer
If the new location is on your same computer, you can just drag your project folder to its new location, and you're done.

Moving to a different computer
If you are moving or copying your project to a remote computer, here's the best way to go about it.

Let's suppose your project folder is named 'MyProject'. Right-click that folder in the Finder, and select the Compress "MyProject" menu item from the popup menu. This will create a new file called "MyProject.zip". This .zip file will contain copies of everything in your MyProject folder, all packed into that single file. (Your original MyProject folder will not be harmed.)

Now just transfer that MyProject.zip file to its new home, then double-click it. It will uncompress and create a new, usable copy of your project and all of its files in that new location.

Rich text containing inline images sometimes fails to align correctly.

This issue affects rich text items that are either right-aligned or centered, and can cause some lines of the item's text to be left-aligned instead. It is caused by a bug in Apple's line-layout module, and sadly it is not possible for Multideck to either fix it or work around it.

The bug affects lines of text that begin with images rather than with text. For some reason the first line of text seems immune to the bug, but subsequent lines (that is, content following a {.n} markup command or a literal newline character) that begin with images will be incorrectly aligned. Note that the bug does not affect wrapped text; it only affects text with forced line breaks.

While Multideck cannot provide a generic workaround, you can avoid the bug by ensuring that your lines do not begin with images. For example, in centered text make sure that that line of text begins and ends with a space character. Beginning with a space avoids the bug; ending with a space keeps the line "balanced" and truly centered. For right-aligned text, only add the leading space.

Images sometimes seem to “ride high” when embedded in a line of text.

Multideck does its best to compensate, but perfection has not yet been achieved.

One useful trick: If a line of rich text (especially one with embedded images) seems too high against its frame or background, add a space character to its text. (If it is centered, add one at each end to preserve the centering balance.) We have seen cases where a simple line like +{image} has poor vertical placement, which is cured by adding the space character(s). We theorize that some fancy fonts may lack such characters as the plus sign, and therefore need more alphanumerics to establish themselves as “boss of the baseline”, but we don't know.

Multideck makes an effort to detect these situations and automatically adds space characters as needed in order to apply this remedy, but hand-tuning may still be needed in some cases. In particular, in multi-line items an embedded image may find itself alone on a line, and will suffer the vertical alignment problem even though there is "real text" on the other lines.

At times you may need to cause a line break at a specific spot in your content, rather than letting the text wrap naturally.

If you use the Content Editor, you may do this by typing option-Return.

If you use a spreadsheet and/or external CSV file, you may be tempted to do this by typing a literal Return character into your content, either in your spreadsheet or directly in your CSV.

In previous versions of Multideck, literal newline characters could cause problems. Multideck now permits using actual newline characters in your CSV content, provided that the field value is properly escaped with double-quotes around it. (See Field Separators and Escapes for more information.) If your CSV file is exported from a spreadsheet, your spreadsheet app will probably automatically provide the double-quotes, so you don't need to worry about it.

But if you have trouble, consider using the {.n} markup command instead of actual newline characters in your content. It avoids all of the problems that might be caused by literal newline characters. See Rich Text Markup Syntax for more information.

When you export, your multi-line text items may have line breaks in different places than when you preview or print.

If your text is too long to fit onto one line in its item, Multideck will automatically insert line breaks (between words) to put the text onto multiple lines.

When you export your cards at higher resolutions (e.g. 300dpi) you may find that those automatic line breaks occur in different places in your text. Although Multideck does its best to preserve your layout, it cannot guarantee that your text will appear exactly the same in these cases. Correct, precise typography is an advanced science, and making it perfect would make Multideck a much more expensive product. Remember, Multideck is for prototypes!

If you find that your exported cards have line breaks in unwanted places, use a rich text item and the {.n} markup command to force line breaks where you want them. See Rich Text Markup Syntax for more information.

If you need to center text over an image, select the text item and choose the menu command Format > Text > Center.

You may wish to have a number (such as victory points, strength, cost, etc.) printed over an icon. The best way to do this is to place a text item over an image item. Select the text item, and choose your desired font and font size from the Font Panel. Then select the menu command Format > Text > Center to ensure that your text is centered within its item.

With the text item still selected, switch to Preview mode. Use the arrow keys on your keybard to nudge the text item's location until the text looks just right over the image. Now you're done!

If you don't center your text, you may find that it doesn't look right when you export your deck, even though it looked good in Preview mode.

Use image files whose size in points is at least 4x the size of their item in the Multideck layout. Otherwise your images may look blurry when printed or exported.

Remember that when you print or export your deck, it will probably be at a higher resolution than your screen. Low-resolution images won't look their best at these higher resolutions.

We recommend that your image files be at least 4x as large as the corresponding Image item in your Multideck layout. For example, to display an icon whose size in Multideck is 50x50, use an image that is at least 200x200 points.

You don't have to be exact. It's okay if your image is even larger.

An item with no content can still have a background color. Use this feature to create squares, rectangles, ovals, circles, and lines.

You can create simple graphic images in Multideck without the use of a separate graphics editor, by creating items that have no content.

For example, to create a circle that is 50x50 in size:

1. Create a new Plain Text item.
2. Use the Content combo box to specify #empty or assign it to a column that has an empty value. (Otherwise you may see validation warnings for the item.)
3. Give it a size of 50x50 and place it where you wish.
4. In the Effects panel, select the option Use Background Color.
5. Click the color well button and select a color.
6. Set the Corner Radius values to 25 and 25.
7. Make sure you do not select the option Hide When Empty.

Another example: To create a horizontal line, do the same as above but set the item's height to 1 and set the Corner Radius values to zero.

Remember that you can also rotate items. For example, to turn a square into a diamond, rotate the item 45°.

Multideck is not a graphics editor. These simple shapes are all that it can do, but you might find them useful.

The image of a daisy appears whenever an image is called for, but the proper image cannot be found.

Use the Validate command in the toolbar to get more information about missing images, along with other problems that might be present in your project.

To fix the daisy:

• Make sure you have selected the correct Image Folder.
• Make sure your image file is in that folder.
• Make sure the image filename is correctly spelled. Case matters: "cat" and "Cat" are different!
• if you are using a spreadsheet, remember to export your spreadsheet to CSV, then click the Reload CSV button in the Layout tab to get Multideck to reload your data and images.

Color matching is rocket science, and difficult to get right at the best of times.

If you are sensitive to color, you may notice that the colors you see on-screen (for example, when using Preview mode) aren't quite the same as the colors you see when you print your deck onto paper.

Please read About Color to learn the best ways to get the colors you want.

If you are using rich text markup to color your text, please also read Color in Rich Text Markup.

A final note: color matching really is rocket science. Multideck does not and cannot guarantee precise color matching. If you need truly precise color matching (for example, to produce final art for cards you intend to publish and sell) you are better off using some other program for that final copy.

To set the default text color for an item:

1. Select the item whose text you want to affect.
2. In the Text Effects Panel, click the color button labeled Text to open the Color Picker.
3. Select your color using the Color Picker.

You should see your color choice take effect immediately. You do not need to do anything to "confirm" your choice; changes are immediate.

To set or change the text color using rich text markup, please see Color in Rich Text Markup.