business cards

[msg]

I have a business card saved on my computer in a .cwk format, how can I configure this card to my Avery C32028 business card paper?

[Barry]

I have a business card saved on my computer in a .cwk format, how can I configure this card to my Avery C32028 business card paper?

"[S]aved on my computer in a .cwk format" only tells that the card is contained in an AppleWorks file. Is this a Draw file with a single copy of the card, a Draw file with multiple copies of the card laid out to fit onto a sheet of standard business card stock, a DB file with the card included in a layout designed to print multiple copies on a single page, or some other type of ".cwk format"?

If your business card, and the Avery stock, is for the US standard 2"x3.5" (approx 5x8.9cm) card, ten to a sheet, then the easiest method is probably to use the Business Card Assistant in the Assistants tab of Starting Points.

In North American English versions, this Assistant is set to produce a layout suitable for standard US Letter size (8.5"x11") size business card stock. In other versions of AppleWorks, the Assistant may be set for A4 size stock.

Click on the Business Card button, then go through the steps, clicking the default choice in each dialogue until you're presented with a page of cards.

Now choose Layout from the Layou menu to see the underlying design of the created card. Click in the card layout, and press command-A to select all.

If you want to keep the "Tips for using your Business card layout" notes at the bottom of this screen, hold down the shift key and click somewhere in the tips to deselect the frame containing the Tips.

Press delete to clear all items from the layout.

Open the document containing your business card, Select All (parts of the card), and Copy.

From the Window menu, select the DB document containing the layout, and Paste.

Drag the pasted itema, all at once, onto the outline showing where the card design should be on the Layout page. Note that anything outside the grey boundaries will not print when you print the cards.

Choose Browse from the Layout menu to view the result.

Regards,
Barry

PS: If the Business Card Assistant's product does not fit your stock, you can still create a Custom Labels layout to fit.

Start by using Page Setup to set the page size to match your stock.

Go Layout > New Layout... Labels
(Note: NOT Layout > New Labels Layout)

Name the layout (Business Cards 2), Choose Custom and click OK.

In the next dialogue, enter a 2 in the "Labels across the page" box. Enter the height and width of an individual label in the other appropriate boxes.

NOTE: Height is from the TOP of one label to the TOP of the next. WIDTH is from the LEFT EDGE of one label to the LEFT EDGE of the next. For business cards, where there is usually no space left between the labels (cards) on the stock, this is not an issue.

Click OK (and OK any alert dialogue that appears) to move to the next dialogue (Set field order).

AppleWorks demands that you insert at least one field into a labels layout before it will create that layout, so double-click on the only field ("Unused field") in the left hand window to move it to the right, then click OK.

Follow the initial instructions regarding clearing this layout and inserting your own business card onto it.

You may need to adjust the Top and Left margins to make the printed cards align with the stock. This is done through Format > Document. Initial settings should be:

Top: distance from top edge of paper to top edge of first row of cards.
Left: Distance from left edge of paper to left edge of first column of cards.

Bottom and Right may both be set to zero. (You will get a warning when printing, but this may be ignored.)

Print a test sheet on plain paper to check alignment.

Left-right alignment can be adjusted only by changing the left margin setting.

Up-Down alignment of the first row is adjusted by changing the top margin setting.

Creeping (cards taking slightly more or less vertical space than they should, resulting in the bottom row being significantly higher or lower than it should be) is corrected by carefully adjusting the position of the "Body" boundary in the layout.

Before making any adjustment to the Body boundary, I would suggest either doing Layout > New Layout..., Duplicate to make a copy of the layout, OR doing Save As... to save a copy of the document with a revised name. Either of these will give you a fixed point to return to in the event of a major mess down the road.

B

[Guest]

This came in a timely fashion. I'm a new Apple user and confounded by the difficulties of trying to figure out how to do this. Thanks for taking the time to write all that out.

I seem to be having trouble with adding some of my clipart - any tips for that? I finally added one flower, but the picture I actually wanted ended up taking up two whole pages when I cut and pasted it.

Thanks, Laurie