[Toups]

So, at my job we occasionally have to draft word documents to fill in the blanks of an existing form. This usually entails loads of guess-and-check work, estimating where to put the text on the page that won't mask over the text of the form, and then fine-tuning various aspects of the font and paragraph format in word.

It occurred to me, however, that using a program like photoshop, it would be very easy to scan in the form for reference, and then create another layer to enter text precisely where it needs to be on the line. The only problem is, photoshop is expensive, and given that we are a business, we can't really pirate it.

So!

Does Photoshop elements have the right features to do this? Or is there some other, cheaper graphics program that will let me do the same thing? The GIMP isn't really an option, sadly, as everyone in the office needs to be able to use this, and these aren't exactly the most computer-literate types.

On a related note -- does anyone know any tricks to make a printer consistently print text in the same exact spot on the page every time? Even when we get the text perfectly aligned, sometimes the printer misaligns it anyway due to the page shifting around while printing.
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[chriservin22]

So is this laying out text for something like a newspaper or magazine? It sounds much more involved than anything I've done in layout/editing -- high school newspaper and college 'zine -- because all we did was design the layout around dummy text before inserting the proper words at the last minute. Usually, things line up well enough.

In high school I think we used Adobe FrontPage(?... was that what it was called?) and as I remember it the program sort of autocorrected any glaring, unjustified text.

[Internetics]

[Toups]

What we're dealing with is a physical form that we order from a company. It's not digital information.
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[Toups]

[Koji]

No, no, Toups; what you need is not a raster graphics program, it's a page layout one like InDesign or Illustrator. Neither of these are meant for what you're looking for, but they would work. Maybe there are free alternatives to these, though, much like Gimp is for Photoshop, but I don't actually know of any.

The actual reason why Photoshop is not what you're looking for is that it was not created to print text, as raster (pixel) graphics do not offer the detail that vector graphics permit. This means, in fewer words, that the text will look fuzzy when printed.

On the other hand, Illustrator is specifically meant for single-page graphics creation, like illustrations or posters, and InDesign is best for print publishing, like books, magazines and that sort of deal. So what I'm trying to tell you is that this is specialized software for design professionals, and way beyond the simple task that you intend to achieve. Perhaps it is best to seek a different solution: for instance, did you try scanning the form and placing the image in your word processor? Otherwise, there could be free software that has been specifically designed for this kind of task; who knows.
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The Ants Parade.

[Toups]

Illustrator or InDesign will allow me to do exactly what I want, then?

Are those expensive?
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[Koji]

On par with Photoshop I guess.
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The Ants Parade.

[Victor]

InDesign is Seven Hundred Dollars.

Even then it wouldn't magically make things perfect or really easy.

I mean, getting stuff like this to come out perfectly, all the time, with a normal printer is kind of hit or miss.

YWhat you're talking about, with Photoshop, you can do that in Word. It supports importing full resolution JPGs: just make sure you get your margins set up right, and then overlay some text-fields. Probably help get your alignment a little tighter a little quicker.

[Toups]

[Takashi]

For the record, the only printers ever to print in forms correctly were the needle-types with the holes in paper and stuff from the 80's. Injet printers are the worst offenders, but a half-decent laser printer will hit it right 95% of the time. Since black and white laser printers are stupid cheap nowadays, I can't recommend one enough for office work.

That said, OpenOffice also has a Illustrator clone called OpenOffice Draw that is free.
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low-end.net | Whimsy (soon) | Serfdom 2.0

[les meat]

get a decent printer, never had problems with my epson and printing in the same place every time.
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[Toups]

[Gironika]

if it was just for layout-issues AND if you had people around that don't mind spending some time to learn a proper (and free) "language" to make professional looking documents, I would have suggested LaTeX. Though that is probably the least thing you want to use then.


And why we're at it - is it just me or aren't people that make videogame-related mags (pdfs) aware that LaTeX could make their layout way easier and better looking?
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[Predator Goose]

[Toups]

That did the trick. Thanks, Goose.

While we're on the subject, is there any way to change the default settings for text boxes? I just want them to be automatically created without outlines and with a transparent background.
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[taidan]

[Predator Goose]

[Koji]

[Gironika]

[Takashi]

Despite what LaTeX writers might tell you, there are other, more practical (and popular) markup languages for text that doesn't require mathematical equations. In fact, OpenOffice (and Office 2007) both use XML-based document markup languages under the WYSIWYG guise, and professional writers have used FrameMaker "structured" mode for years to style and create technical documentation, normally under the DocBook schema.

InDesign has a couple of tools for that, in the sense you can create a InDesign "style sheet" that is applied to whatever XML you feed it. So you can create a look for a magazine, and all the writers have to do is to send XMLs in, that they can generate in several levels of geekiness.
This sheds some light into it, albeit it's fairly light threaded.
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low-end.net | Whimsy (soon) | Serfdom 2.0

[Koji]

Takashi, now THAT souns practical. I'll have to look into it and how it integrates with InDesign. First, let's read your links.
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The Ants Parade.

[alice]

you know, there are free alternatives to illustrator, photoshop and indesign. Most popular photoshop ones are paint.net and gimp. Paint.net is probably a little bit cleaner and easier to use than GIMP. Inkscape is the only one I know that substitutes for illustrator. Never used it myself.

IMO your best bet is paint.net. a vector program like illustrator and indesign are meant for generating digital content that doesn't suffer from resolution issues like raster content does. But since your just printing on 8.5x11 (as opposed to say printing 8.5x11 feet billboards) resolution really isn't an issue so a raster program like paint.net should be fine.

btw, in case you don't know, raster = pixels, like a .bmp file, vector = mathematical equations to store visual information and therefore doesn't suffer resolution issues like raster does.

[Mikey]

Not a useful post:

This thread reminds me that I kind of can't wait for this http://a.viary.com/tools/ to get off the ground.