The following is a step by step example of how to build an editable product. Please note that you can do any of the steps at any time, and follow your own approach. Many of the steps are optional.
Its assumed that you have an example of the design, in PDF format, and that it is suitable for printing.
1. Create an editable product
2. On the Artwork tab, upload a sample PDF (this will create a product thumbnail)
3. On the Template tab, find the option ‘PDF Interpret’
Using PDF Interpret
PDF Interpret is simply a tool that will create text objects in the correct format and position. This will speed up the build process. Warning: Using PDF Interpret will wipe out any previously created template.
4. Upload the same PDF again. Follow the instructions to upload fonts.
5. Once PDF Interpret is done, review the fields, rename them, change the default content, check ‘labels’ etc.
6. Once positions and size are correct, upload a NEW PDF into the Artwork tab, same as the sample but without the new text or images that the template is adding.
Optional Steps
7. Create objects manually. Either retrieve the XY co-ords from Adobe Illustrator, or position them by trial and error using the original sample as the background artwork (so that you can overlay the text and images and line them up)
8. Create Dataloaders to load default data or to allow users to quickly fill fields.
Troubleshooting
I don’t have a PDF
You don’t need one unless you want to use PDF Interpret. In the artwork tab, select custom size. The background of the artwork will therefore always be white. You can introduce images and text in the template.
When I use PDF Interpret, it doesn’t find any text fields.
When you create/export the PDF in Illustrator (or elsewhere) make sure that the text objects are coherently defined, ie: not converted to paths. Also, ensure that the objects have font definition embedded.
When I use PDF Interpret, it creates loads of image objects.
Just delete them, if they aren’t going to be editable objects.
When I use PDF Interpret, it just hangs.
Make sure that your PDF is as simple as possible. Having lots of text fields is OK, but lots of images made up of hundreds of components is not. The system is trying to make sense of and identify every little image component. If possible, in Illustrator, try to merge/combine all images into a single clean image.
