Designing portrait templates

Add a composite frame on the Editor's Layout tab to build your portrait grids. After setting the frame's query, a preview of the portraits and labels will appear in the grid.

The composite grid is made up of placeholder images and label text, standing in for your portrait photos and associated database information.
The portrait + label placeholder is called the Portrait template. The design of the portrait template may be customized.

Here is a default portrait template - a basic portrait image and label combination.

Portrait template options are displayed on the Layout tab. Select a composite frame, then access the Portrait Template options on the left side of the Editor to change it.

A selection of demo templates is available:

These templates can be customized in the Portrait template editor so they will work with your index categories.

Editing a Portrait Template

Select any preset, then click Edit to launch the Portrait Template editor.

The selected template will open in the Portrait template editor.

You can edit the existing template, or delete the contents of the template to start from a clean slate.

Changing the portrait template size

The size of the portrait template is presented as an aspect ratio. It is not measured in inches/cm since the size of portrait template adjusts on your composite grid according to the available area, number of portraits and the column/row distribution. 

Change the aspect ratio to as required. If you need to add additional text frames, decorative items, logos/clipart, etc, you can create a portrait template to accommodate the space required.

Here are a few examples of different aspect ratios applied to a basic portrait template...

and the same templates but decorated with text tags, images and shapes.

Portrait frame options

If you have started your template from a clean slate (deleted all items), click on the Portrait icon over the template to add a placeholder frame.

Select the portrait frame to resize it, reposition it, and/or rotate it.

Add a shape and/or a border around the portrait frame.

Add a shadow effect if desired.

Make the portrait black&white in the image effects options.

Other image effects are available - use these carefully as so not to distort your actual portrait images.

Details on using extracted png portraits versus jpg or flattened png portraits can be found here.

Label options

Select the existing label on the template to access the label options, or add a new label by clicking on the text tag icon above the template.

Labels are customized with text tags pointing to your index categories. When your composite set is generated, the text tags will replace the category names with data attached to your portraits. Any item included in the Index can be included in label text.

In the example, a school index is in use with specific school-related categories such as Grade and Teacher. Other fields have random names (A, B) that may contain label-appropriate data. Some might not be useful in all cases (eg. Role might have job title information in it for staff, but no information for students).  Other types of indexes will contain different categories - a sports team index might include roster number, team, and player position, whereas a company or service group index may have division and job title information.

The example below includes LName, FName, which would generate name labels under each portrait (eg. Smith, Jane)

This can be customized by typing directly in the tag text editor. For example, we can reorder the categories and remove the comma, ensuring there is a space between the two categories (eg. Smith, Jane becomes Jane Smith).  All text entered into this box will appear in every label, so be careful about what you are adding. 

A portrait template may include more than one label.
Click on the Tag Text icon to add additional labels, then set their contents on the left side.

In this case, we have added two labels for the categories A & B. In our school index, personalized info appears in these categories eg. motto, graduation quote, career or school ambitions, nickname, etc.).

Customize the text attributes for labels on the right side of the template. Choose a font, alignment options, text color, and other features.

You can adjust the font size, but once your composite is generated, the label text will automatically be resized to fit the available area.

Shapes

Add a shape to embellish your portrait template.

Add as many shapes as you like, reposition them, reorder them so they appears under other elements, change border and color options to customize your layout. Be as creative as you like.

The example on the left has a single color block shape moved under the label area. The example on the right has three shapes in the label area, one with a rounded edge and a border, and a shape with a gradient applied stretched to cover the background.

Image frames

Drag and drop logos, clipart or a custom image to your portrait template. 

Image frame effects are available on the right side pane: border effects, shadow, image effects and gradients.

Saving your template

Once your design is complete, save the results. Stock or demo templates can only be saved as a copy under a new name. 

Custom templates can be overwritten.

Once saved, the new template will appear in the Editor's layout options.