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An object lesson in Papyrus from Michael High...

Michael High introduces the tale of "Text and the Three Objects" to explain the difference between Word Processing and Desk Top Publishing.

Having mastered the use of styles and tables, we have the basic tools needed to produce professional looking letters and reports. We can take this one stage further and produce multiple column documents with headers and footers by the creative use of the "Page Layout" and "Master Pages" options. These are well covered from pages 101 and 143 of the original manual. Since their functionality and dialogs have hardly changed between Papyrus v3 and v5, I have assumed that you have read up on the subject so we can press on.

The manuals tend to use the term "objects" in a variety of contexts, which can be confusing. By my definition, all Papyrus documents contain "text". They may also use some of the three "objects".

Word Processing uses "Text"
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"Text" are characters entered by the keyboard whose position on the page is determined by the way all previous text fills up the Master Page layout. You can control the horizontal margins and the paragraph offsets from the previous and subsequent paragraphs, but the position within the document will usually change as you modify previous text.

There are only two mechanisms which allow you to lock text into a particular vertical position within the document. The first is the use of page and column breaks to place text at the top of a new page or column. The second is the use of the group lines command to make sure text elements are not separated across an automatic page / column break whenever preceding text is modified. For example, a heading could be grouped with the first few lines of the next paragraph.

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Menu for text placement
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DTP also uses "Objects"
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"Objects" may be placed anywhere within the printer margins. They can be anchored to a particular piece of text. They can also be anchored to a specific place on a page and so need not move when previous text is modified. They can force surrounding text to flow round them. They can also be superimposed on each other in layers. There are three basic types of objects; "pictures", "drawings" and "text objects".

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Plenty of object options
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Pictures

Since the release Papyrus v4 it has been very good at handling pictures such as scanned images and the output from "paint" programs. These can be enlarged or reduced, stretched, and rotated round the four points of the compass. All loaded pictures are held in the picture window. Since Papyrus v5, these may be held by file reference. In this way, if the original picture file is altered, the Papyrus document is automatically updated next time it is opened.

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The best place to size pictures
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Monochrome users, like myself, need not be put off by the reference to "Colour printing" on the Picture page of the Object attributes dialog. It is just as handy for making fine adjustments to images being printed on black and white printers. A tip for NVDI users here is to leave the Raster type as "Output device native" (Papyrus v4) or "output device's default" (Papyrus v5). This leaves the NVDI printer drivers to perform their own dithering (the process of converting the colours and grey scales into a pattern of dots). By using the NVDI MakePrin.prg, fine control can be exercised over not only the intensity, but also the colour separation and contrast curve. Colour users in particular, can use this to fine tune several printer driver files to cover different paper types such as normal, glossy and transparency. Even black and white laser printers can benefit from this technique, particularly when producing transparencies for overhead projectors.

Beware that Papyrus is none too clever at handling vector pictures. This is a shame, since they are resolution independent, take up little disk space and print so well. It certainly comes as a disappointment to Kandinsky users. The problem is that Papyrus can not handle GEM files with colour, fills or angled text. In other words, it only handles black lines! However, all is not lost if you can follow these steps:-

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* Open your vector drawing in Kandinsky, or wherever you created it.

* Stretch it to the exact size you require in your Papyrus document.

* Print it to file using the NVDI (or SpeedoGDOS) image driver at the resolution you intend to print the rest of your document (300 dpi, 600dpi or other dpi setting). This creates a crisp (and colourful) IMG format file which can then be imported into Papyrus and will output at the desired resolution with no loss of quality.

Drawings

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"Drawing Objects" in Papyrus are not drawings in the sense of GEM files. As such, they do not appear in the Picture window. They are boxes, lines and (Papyrus v4 or later) circles that can be used to frame, and sub-divide your text. They can be assigned with various attributes, including colours, patterns, line styles and arrowheads. The position and size attributes can be set precisely. By holding down the [Shift] key, lines may be drawn that are precisely horizontal or vertical. They can be placed in front of or behind text or other objects. Experimentation is the name of the game here!

Text Objects

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This is where the fun begins. Suppose you have created a three column newsletter, but the opening sentence needs to span more than the first column. Here is a step by step guide:

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* Select the Text Object icon in the toolbar and draw a box at the required width - the height is not important at this stage.

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Placing the frame for the text object
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* Right click to display the attributes dialogs (or select the dialog via the drop down menus in earlier versions). Set Word Wrap on. On the "Position & Size" page, check "Object height grows with text" and clear the other boxes.

* Select the Text Tool and click within the new text object to enter your text.

* Use the Object Tool to select the entire text object. You may then format the whole text by choosing a text style or a particular font (individual words or letters can be locally formatted by selecting them with the text tool). In Papyrus v5, the text object may also be given a fill and line border, with individually set colours. It may even be rotated to any angle, although you should be warned text wrap does not always work correctly, except at the four points of the compass.

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Perfect positioning for the text object
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These objects can be set up very quickly, yet they have the power to transform a document into a visually interesting presentation people will want to read.

For example, take a look back to the first article in this series, on p38 in AC#8. The layout designer picked out a key sentence from the article and repeated it as a text object in the second column. The title and the text object are the first things you read and the combination set the scene for the article in a simple but effective way. The article flows round it, and may still be read easily.

I've now covered the topics I originally had in mind when I began writing this mini-series so I'm now relying on you for feedback and/or suggestions if you want this series to continue - I hope you've found them useful so far.

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If you'd like this mini-series please send your feedback and/or suggestions on disk in ASCII or Papyrus format, to the address in the masthead on page 4.

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Michael High
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Email: michael_high@nt.com
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