When creating images using the Cobwebb PPD Printer driver there are a few useful tips that aid in the quick and efficient printing of images from the Server, and in the alignment of text when originally positioning your Spooled file text within the document creation of CPPD. See Including your Image Overlay for details on how to include your overlay in your design.

Things to bear in mind when you start:-

1.The document that you create (say in MS Word etc) needs to be made up of line drawing with the inserted company logos etc. Sticking to black and white is a sensible standard to conform to as any image that contains a lot of colour or grey scale can cause the file created to be large.  Bear this in mind when you imagine that a print run from the Server containing your image merged with the reformatted text could be a number of pages and this will have an effect on the speed of printing, and the traffic on the network.  Image size should be 10-20K.  Using a resolution of >300dpi will not improve the print quality.

Note: Colour images and overlays can only be used when the output device is one of the following:

•Print - AFP

•Email - PDF

•File - PDF

The above output devices also support Image Resources which will speed up the printing process as the image is only downloaded once for each print run.

2.Once you have selected to print to the Cobwebb PPD Printer driver, click on the Properties button. If you wish your output to be black and white click on the Gray Scale radio button otherwise select Color.

3.You can now click on the Advanced button to select the colour depth you require and change the resolution.

4.It is possible to print shaded areas by filling them with a shaded grey scale of no more than 15-20%.  We have found that this does not have a huge impact on the size of the file.  

5.When you come to print the document using the Cobwebb PPD Printer driver (which creates the file format desired for the Cobwebb Designer) it will automatically print it to your Documents folder unless you change the path.  Then when you Insert Image Element, to include the image within your PPD file, it will default to the path you have configured for the Images directory in the View > Options > Directories.  
 
Note: You will need to change the Save as type default from Printer Files (*.prn) to All Files (*.*) and enter a File name for your Overlay including the .png extension. Please remember when creating your image file name, that it needs to be eight characters or less in order for it to be successfully uploaded to the Server.  We recommend you maintain the same, or related names for your Image Overlays and your PPD files.

6.If you need to make changes to your overlay simply change the document and re-print it using the Cobwebb PPD Printer driver. If you do not already have the PPD file open then the new overlay will automatically be selected (provided that you have stored it in the same folder). If you already have your PPD file open and you want to bring in the new overlay then:

a.Open the Properties dialog for the Image, click on the Image tab and Browse. This will give you the opportunity to select the new file of the same name and overwrite the current image that you have in the document with the modified image.