Creating Page Layouts

1. In the Content Explorer, expand the Resources folder, then expand the PageLayouts folder. Notice the existing two page layouts (Back and Front).

   

2. Right-click the PageLayouts folder, and from the context menu select New > Page Layout.

   

   The Add File dialog opens.

3. Under the Factory Templates, select the Default template, because it is quite simple and requires fewer changes than other templates.

   

4. In the File Name field at the bottom of the dialog, type Front2 as the name for the new page layout.

5. Click Add. The page layout is added to the Content Explorer, and the Page Layout Editor opens to the right, displaying the page layout.

   

6. Before we continue with the rest of the steps for editing the page layout, let's make one quick change in it.

7. Click the header frame (the rectangle) at the top of the page layout and press Delete on your keyboard.

   

8. Click to save your work.

For more information about adding page layout files, see Adding Page Layouts.

Now that we have created our first page layout, we will start making changes to it. To begin, we will adjust the page size and margins.

1. In the local toolbar of the Page Layout Editor, click (click the face of the button, not the down arrow).

   

   The Page Properties dialog opens.

2. Select the General tab.
3. Click the Page Size drop-down and select (custom).
4. In the Custom Width field, enter 15, and for the unit of measurement select Inch (in).
5. In the Custom Height field, enter 5, and for the unit of measurement select Inch (in).
6. Keep the Orientation field set to Portrait.

7. In all of the Margins fields, enter 0.

   

   Note: You can set some value for the margins on your page if you want. However, in our template we chose to set them all to 0 and specify the margins on our CSS styles instead.

8. Click OK.
9. Click to save your work.

10. Because the view of the page layout is so large, it is difficult to see what's going on so far. Therefore, in the local toolbar, click View and select Fit Width. The page layout is zoomed out so you can see all of it.

    

For more information about specifying the page size and margins, see Specifying Page Size and Orientation and Specifying Page Margins.

Now that we've resized the page layout, we're going to divide it into three equal panels, which will serve as the natural locations where the printed output can be folded. We will do this by creating columns in our body frame.

1. In the Page Layout Editor, double-click the body frame.

   

   The Frame Properties dialog opens.

   Note: An alternative is to simply click and drag the body frame, and its edges, until you have it placed just where you want it on the page. However, in this exercise, we'll use the Frame Properties dialog, because it's easier to get the precise size and position that you see in the template.

2. Select the Frame tab.
3. We want to set the size and position of the body frame so that it fits exactly on top of the page. So in the Size and Position section, click in the Width field, enter 15, and for the unit of measurement select Inch (in).
4. In the Height field, enter 5, and for the unit of measurement select Inch (in).

5. In the Padding section, click in the Left field, enter 10, and for the unit of measurement select Pixel (px).

   Note: This is optional; you can set it to 0 if you like.

6. In the rest of the fields on the tab, enter 0.

   

7. Select the Columns tab.
8. In the Count field, enter 3.

9. In the Gap field, enter 0.

   

10. Click OK.

11. Click to save your work. The page layout should now look something like this:

    

For more information about editing the frame size and columns, see Specifying Frame Size and Creating Columns.

Next, we're going to set the bleed size. The bleed is the area beyond the edge of the page where printing occurs. Professional printers use the bleed to prevent a final trimmed document from having unprinted areas along the edge of the document.

1. In the local toolbar of the Page Layout Editor, select View > Bleed. Now you can see the bleed area in the editor.

   

   

   

2. In the local toolbar of the Page Layout Editor, click (select the face of the button, not the down arrow).

   

   The Page Properties dialog opens.

3. Select the Print Marks tab. This lets us set the size of the bleed area.

4. In all of the fields, enter 0.25 and for the unit of measurement select Inch (in).

   

   Note: You can certainly keep the default setting of 0.50 in. We simply changed it in our template because 0.25 in is the industry standard. The most important thing is to make sure the bleed area is large enough. Ideally, it should be no less than 0.125 in.

5. Click OK.

6. Click to save your work. The page layout should now look something like this:

   

For more information about the bleed, see Specifying the Page Bleed Size.

In addition to the large body frame that is divided into three columns, we want to add a footer frame, which will display page numbers and decoration images.

1. In the Page Layout Editor, double-click the footer frame. You will need to scroll down in the Page Layout Editor to find it if you started out with the Default page layout and then resized page according to the previous steps. You will see a small rectangle with the word "footer." That's the label at the bottom-right of the footer frame; double-click that.

   

   The Frame Properties dialog opens.

   Note: An alternative is to simply click and drag the footer frame, and its edges, until you have it placed just where you want it on the page. However, in this exercise, we'll use the Frame Properties dialog, because it's easier to get the precise size and position that you see in our template.

2. Select the Frame tab.
3. In the Size and Position section, click in the Top field, enter 424, and for the unit of measurement select Pixel (px).
4. Click in the Width field, enter 1440, and for the unit of measurement select Pixel (px).
5. Click in the Height field, enter 44, and for the unit of measurement select Pixel (px).
6. In the Anchors section, click in the Bottom field, enter 12, and for the unit of measurement select Pixel (px).

7. In the rest of the fields on the tab, enter 0.

   

8. In the lower-right corner of the tab, click the left, right, and bottom arrow so that it looks like this:

   

   These anchors are useful in case you decide to resize the entire page at some point. When the page is resized, the footer frame will maintain its same distance from the left, right, and bottom edges of the page because they are anchored.

9. Select the Alignment tab.

10. Set the Vertical Alignment to Middle.

    

    Note: This is purely optional. You do not need to specify how content is aligned in the frame. In our template, we decided to align the content in the middle of the frame vertically.

11. Click OK.

12. The footer frame should now be repositioned and selected on the page.

    

    But we need to bring it up to the top level so that it's easy to work with and so that no content obscures the decoration images or page numbers that we'll place in the footer. So in the local toolbar, select Layout > Depth > Float To Top.

    

13. Now let's add content to the footer frame. With the frame selected, press F2 on your keyboard.
14. In the dialog asking if you want to insert a page number, click No. The Frame Editor opens at the bottom of the workspace.
15. Select the Table ribbon.

16. On the far left of the ribbon, click the face of the Insert Table button.

    

    The Insert Table dialog opens.

17. Select the General tab.
18. In the Number of columns field, enter 3.
19. In the Number of rows field, enter 1.
20. In the Number of header rows and Number of footer rows field, enter 0.

21. In the AutoFit Behavior section, select Fixed column width, and click the field to the right. From the upper-right corner of the small popup, you’ll need to select Length first. Then complete the value and unit of measurement fields. Enter 33.333 as the value (an equal percentage for each of the three columns in the table), and choose % as the unit of measurement. Then click OK in the popup.

    

22. Click OK.
23. In the Frame Editor at the bottom of the interface, add content to the first column of the table:

    1. In the first table cell insert three circle images, each separated by a space (in our template, the image is named "FooterCircleBlack"). See Inserting Images.

       

    2. Resize the images you inserted. In the existing page layout, we resized ours to a maximum width of 30px. You can do this by applying a style to the images, or you can right-click on each image, choose Image Properties, select the Size tab, and edit the Maximum Size Width. See Resizing Images.

       

    3. Apply a style to the paragraph in that cell. To do this, click in that cell, select the Table ribbon, and in the Cells section, click Cell Content Style.

       

       Then in the Table Cell Content Style dialog, select p.FrameFooterImagesRight. This is a style class we created in the template to align the decoration images to the right. We will cover styles in more detail in a later lesson (see Creating Styles). Click OK.

       

       It should now look like this:

       

24. Add content to the second column of the table:
    1. Type the number 2 to represent page 2. In our template, we did not use a page variable—like we would normally do in a page layout—because we're dealing with columns within a single page, rather than one page number per page. Besides, the product foldout only has six panes total, so typing the page numbers is not an issue.

    2. Select the Table ribbon, click Cell Content Style, and select p.FrameFooterTextLeft. Then click OK.

       

       The number will be bigger and aligned to the left of the table cell.

       

25. Add content to the third column of the table:
    1. Type the number 3 to represent page 3.

    2. Select the Table ribbon, click Cell Content Style, and select p.FrameFooterTextRight. Then click OK.

       

       This formats the number and aligns it to the right in the cell.

       

26. Click to save your work.
27. (Optional) You can close the Frame Contents window pane by clicking the X in the upper-right corner.

For more information about editing footer frames, see Adding Text and Content to Frames.

In the Back2 page layout file, we're going to use two body frames, instead of just one. We're going to split the second body frame into two columns and set a background color on it.

1. Open the Back2 page layout file.
2. In the Page Layout Editor, you can select View > Fit Width to see the entire layout better.
3. Double-click the body frame. The Frame Properties dialog opens.
4. Select the Frame tab.
5. In the Width field, enter 480, and for the unit of measurement select Pixel (px).
6. In the Height field, enter 480, and for the unit of measurement select Pixel (px).
7. In the Anchors section, click in the Right field, enter 960, and for the unit of measurement select Pixel (px).

8. In the rest of the fields on the tab, enter 0.

   

9. Select the Columns tab.

10. In the Count field, enter 1.

    

11. Click OK.

    

    You'll probably notice that the frame still has a background image from the front page layout. Don't worry about that right now; we'll fix that in another set of steps.

12. In the Page Layout Editor, click on the body frame and press CTRL+C, then CTRL+V on your keyboard to make a copy of it.
13. Double-click the new body frame, which should be on top of the first body frame. The Frame Properties dialog opens.
14. Select the Frame tab.
15. In the Size and Position section, click in the Left field, enter 480, and for the unit of measurement select Pixel (px).
16. In the Width field, enter 10, and for the unit of measurement select Inch (in).
17. In the Height field, enter 5, and for the unit of measurement select Inch (in).

18. In the Padding section, click in the Left field, enter 10, and for the unit of measurement select Pixel (px).

    Note: This is optional; you can set it to 0 if you like.

19. In the rest of the fields on the tab, enter 0.

    

20. Select the Columns tab.

21. In the Count field, enter 2.

    

22. Select the Background tab.
23. In the Color section, select Solid.
24. In the Fill Start field, click the down arrow and select More Colors

25. In the Color Picker dialog, highlight the number the # field and replace it with 4E4D4E.

    

26. In the Color Picker dialog, click OK.

    

27. In the Frame Properties dialog, click OK.

28. Click to save your work. The back page layout should now look like this:

    

For more information about editing the frame size, columns, and backgrounds, see Specifying Frame Size, Creating Columns, and Specifying a Frame Background.

For the second body frame in the back page layout, we have a background color. Because we anticipate this being printed on white paper, we need to make sure the color extends into the bleed area.

One solution is to click and drag the body frame so that it extends into the bleed area. But that means adjusting our styles to prevent topic text from moving into the bleed area.

Instead, we are going to create a decoration frame with the same background color. We will position this decoration frame around (and behind) the second body frame.

1. In the local toolbar of the Page Layout Editor, click the down arrow next to the New Frame button and select New Decoration Frame Mode.

   

2. Click on the page and draw a rectangle. It doesn't matter how big it is or where you draw it.
3. Double-click that frame. The Frame Properties dialog opens.
4. Select the Frame tab.

5. Set the fields as follows:

   size and position

   • Left 480 px
   • Top -0.25 in
   • Width 10.25 in
   • Height 5.50 in

   anchors

   • Right -0.25 in
   • Bottom -0.25 in

   padding

   • Left 0
   • Right 0
   • Top 0
   • Bottom 0

   

6. Select the Background tab.
7. In the Color section, select Solid.
8. In the Fill Start field, click the down arrow and select More Colors
9. In the Color Picker dialog, highlight the number the # field and replace it with 4E4D4E (this matches the background of the second body frame).
10. In the Color Picker dialog, click OK.
11. In the Frame Properties dialog, click OK.
12. Now we just need to make sure that the decoration frame is behind the body frame. So click on the decoration frame in the Page Layout Editor.

13. In the local toolbar, select Layout > Depth > Sink To Bottom.

    

14. Click to save your work. The layout should now look like this:

    

For more information about frames, see Adding Page Layout Frames.

Next, we need to make some changes to the footer frame so that it looks good with the dark background.

1. In the Page Layout Editor, select the footer frame and press F2 on your keyboard. The Frame Editor opens so that we can change the content in the three-column table.
2. In the first column of the table, right-click the circle image on the far right, and in the context menu select Image Properties.

3. In the Image Properties dialog, find and select the FooterLogoBlack.eps file.

   

4. Click OK.
5. Place your cursor in the first cell (not selecting an image).

6. Select the Table ribbon, click Cell Content Style, and select p.FrameFooterImagesLeft. Then click OK.

   

   This aligns the images to the left in the cell.

   

7. In the second column of the table, replace the number 2 with 4 to represent page 4.

8. Select the Table ribbon, click Cell Content Style, and select p.FrameFooterTextDarkBackgroundLeft. Then click OK.

   

   This formats the number and aligns it to the left in the cell.

   

9. In the third column of the table, replace the number 3 with 5 to represent page 5.

10. Select the Table ribbon, click Cell Content Style, and select p.FrameFooterTextDarkBackgroundRight. Then click OK.

    

    This formats the number and aligns it to the right in the cell.

    

11. Click to save your work.
12. (Optional) You can close the Frame Contents window pane by clicking the X in the upper-right corner.
13. We need to make sure the footer frame is on the top level so that it's easy to work with and so that no content obscures the decoration images or page numbers. So in the Page Layout Editor, click on the footer frame (you will need to do this on the left side of the layout, where the decoration images are shown). Then in the local toolbar, select Layout > Depth > Float To Top.

14. Click to save your work. It should now look like this:

    

For more information about editing footer frames, see Adding Text and Content to Frames.