A while ago (in Part 1) I showed you how to create text fields in your PDFs. This allowed users to customise the document with their own details. You’ll see on that page that Ric was interested to know if / how you could go about having the same functionality with images. Part 2 shows you how:

As with Part 1, this should work with any PDF, no matter what size or intended purpose, and on any PDF that has been created with a respectable program.

Open the PDF with Acrobat Pro (I’m using version 9.5). Again, as with Part 1, use the TouchUp Object tool to delete anything you may have placed as a placeholder (image shows the poster from Part 1, but you get the idea).

The image area will be a button, so use the Button tool to draw the area in which you’d like your image to be placed:

Name your button and Show All Properties:

Enter a Name and Tooltip for the button and edit the Appearance to get it how you want it.

In the Options tab, it is important that you select Icon only as the image your user selects will essentially become the icon for this button:

Next, go to the Actions tab and choose Run a JavaScript under Select Action:

Then click . This will bring up a window — enter the following:

event.target.buttonImportIcon();

This should look like this. Click .

The box can be left empty if you wish, so that the user can add an image to a blank space, but you can now click on the area you’ve just defined and choose an image you’d like to add to the document. In the window where you select your file, you will have to specify the file type before it lets you select it, unless you are looking to insert a PDF which Acrobat will select by default.

Once you’ve found and clicked on the image you’d like to place, click .

It will then show you a preview of your chosen image.

Click OK and your image will be inserted into your box.

Once your done, Enable Usage Rights in Adobe Reader…, agreeing to whatever it says, and save it where you want it. (Probably best to save it as a new file rather than over your original.)

Anyone should then be able to open the PDF in an up-to-date version of Acrobat Reader (available free) and replace the image by clicking on the area and following the steps above. They will then be able to save, save as, e-mail, print etc.

Good luck! If you have any trouble with it, let me know…

-Doug

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Here is a basic walk-through on how to convert a Mac DMG file from read only format to a read/write format.

This is not recommended as it can make any piece of software unstable or unusable, but in certain cases it is useful to let you modify the software. The original software developer and or publisher will not support you doing this.

This is written with the intention of allowing files within Rome: Total War on the Mac to be modified, although it is equally valid for other read only DMGs which you need/want to convert to read/write format.

It is always recommended that you make a backup of the original DMG file  in case something should go wrong and you need to reinstate it.

First, locate the Rome Total War folder, which by default you would have copied to your Applications folder on your Macintosh HD. Next, open Disk Utility, found in the Applications > Utility folder. Drag the RomeData DMG file into the left pane of Disk Utility.

It should then appear in the list of drives & images, as follows:

Select RomeData in the list and click Convert.

You will be presented with some options. Select read/write from the drop down menu and Save it to your Desktop.

A panel showing you the progress should then appear.

Once it is complete the new DMG should have appeared on your Desktop – it will be called either RomeData or RomeData.dmg. Drag the file from your Desktop into the Rome Total War folder.

You will be prompted to replace the existing file. If you haven’t already made a backup of the original DMG, you should Stop and do that beforehand. If you have already made a backup, choose Replace.

Once the file has finished moving, you have successfully converted and replaced the read only DMG with a read/write version.

You can then double click on the RomeData DMG file to mount it and subsequently make any alterations you wish. If you find you’ve managed to break something, simply replace the DMG with the original from your backup.

Let me know if I’ve made any mistakes, if you’ve found this useful, or if you’re having problems. I’ll do my best to help!

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The Drobo Advantage

A while ago I decided it was time to take my data storage and backup seriously. Having a few machines, PCs and Macs, laptops and desktops, a couple of external drives, a Time Capsule for my Time Machine backups, I just thought, “enough is enough!”

Having come to the conclusion that my data storage was getting out of control, I started exploring my options. Broadly speaking they were these:

• More large external drives & mirror the data.
• RAID
• Online backup (link coming when I’ve decided who to recommend)
• A Drobo storage robot

More hard drives would of just added to the clutter and confusion, though I might still invest in a few so that I can create bootable copies of my critical drives.

A RAID set up was a tempting solution, but although I’m more tech savy than some, I fear this would of eaten up a lot more of my time than I was willing to invest.

The next option is something I’m still considering. Having an online, offsite backup of all my data sounds like a great idea. Whilst the initial backups would most likely take huge amounts of time and might anger my ISP, I think this is something I’ll definitely be utilising in the future and have several reviews of services to get through before I make a decision/recommendation.

A Drobo. I had been hearing good things about Drobos for a while through tech podcasts and decided to take a look at the details. Working in much the same way as RAID, but with less input from me, it sounded like the perfect solution! You can insert 1-4 drives of any capacity and when using 2-4, it will automatically stripe your data across the disks to protect it in the event of a drive death. You can even hot swap the drives to add capacity when you’re running out of space.

I’m currently running 2 x 1.5 TB drives in my Drobo and whilst I still have a long way to go in getting all my data organised on it, I’m confident that it will be worth the effort.

It now also comes in 4 models, Drobo (version I own), Drobo S, Drobo Pro and Drobo Elite, adding varying degrees of more protection against disk failure, server versions which can be rack mounted and faster connections.

Rather than listing the many features of a ‘Drobo storage robot’ here, head over to the Drobo website and have a read through if it sounds like the sort of thing that you’d find useful. Trust me, it’s the best solution I’ve found, truly proving to be ‘plug-in peace of mind’.

If you have any questions, or want to share your own experiences with a Drobo, I’d love to receive your comments

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= Here!

That’s right, I’ve got my first product in the shops… Actually on shelves! In an Apple store of all stores! Exciting times

Well, to say it’s my product is a little strong, I didn’t start it, but I finished it off. The next bunch will be even more exciting, the one’s that I’ve worked on from start to finish, the Brothers in Arms: Double Time and Mini Ninjas of the mac gaming world. Watch this space

I’ll leave you with this:

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Time for a change?

As mentioned in my last post, for some time now I’ve had a new design in mind for this site. It’s current state has been around since around September ’08, so I’m itching for a change. The current design was devised in an attempt to create a stylish, professional looking frame for displaying my work. I was looking to better my career at the time and was determined to have a fully functional online portfolio in a finished state (for the first time since my university project, Design by BlueCow). The gradients were intended to draw the eye toward the content, whilst the grey colour scheme was to allow the coloured images of my work speak the loudest, helping the information hierarchy – and a bit of colour on a grey canvas always looks good and grabs attention.

I was, and am still, quite happy with the way it looks. However I’ve moved on a little since then and feel a change in my personal site is needed to reflect this. I’m determined that at some point in 2010, dougbarned.co.uk will undertake a transformation to this:

Coming to screen near you at some point in 2010

This design has been in the making since July ’09 and has been put on the back-burner for a while, but I’m set on making it happen. Though I’m also re-thinking design-is.co.uk as well at the moment to make it more user-centric, hopefully to allow my potential clients to get to the information they need, faster. So it might take a while… stay tuned for developments. In the meantime, leave some comments and let me know what you think of the new look! Feedback would be a real help

Oh, and Rome: Total War has now got an official release date of February 5th, so I’ll be able to post some of the bits I’ve worked on for that at some point – which will be nice.

I’m off to enjoy the rest of my weekend and finish eating my Domino’s pizza…

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Many many months, a few haircuts, and a new job later, I’m back! Yes, I’ve been a busy boy… And what better day to start getting back into my blogging habit than the strangest day of 2010 – 110110, which has a lovely binary ring to it. Strangest until October 10^th anyway. (Not that I had built up much of a habit, but I was working on it )

I spent a lot of 2009 wishing to work for people I liked, creating work that I was proud of. I was searching for an opportunity to design, be creative, and develop my skill. I was lucky enough to get this opportunity! Since late September ’09 I have been working as the principle print designer at Mac games publisher, Feral Interactive. In this role I am now responsible for the design and artworking of all printed items and the odd digital/web work. This includes corporate and consumer marketing pieces, e-newsletters, sales brochures, DVD labels, sleeves and boxes, disk icons, folder backgrounds and the occasional in-game graphic or screen. If you’re an owner of the recently released BioShock port, or are a fan of MacFormat, then you may have seen some of my work already. I’m thoroughly looking forward to the release of the first title I’ve been involved heavily with, Rome: Total War – it will be a real thrill to see a product I’ve worked on ‘in the wild’, so to speak.

Other than that aspect of my life, my freelance web and design work is going fine, having redesigned and upgraded the CMS on a Scottish Labour Party MP’s website and launched a new college website for a school on Oxford Street.

I’ve also been having a think about a new design for this site, which I’ll come back to in a later post. I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seat for that one

Until then, I hope you all enjoyed the snow if you’re in the UK (great fun, even if it does cause transport havoc!) and hope you had an excellent Christmas break & great new years celebrations.

As I always say, “I intend to post more often now”. Maybe in 2010 this will turn out to be true! I promise there’ll be at least one more before I use the header 111111*.

Thanks for reading and feel free to say “hi!” in the comments…

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

*November 11^th 2011 for anyone who doesn’t get it

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Whilst the sun has decided to shine on the UK at last, all it seems to have done for me is make me a little less comfortable in my chair at work, instilled a yearning to go outside, and made me a little more sleepy.

However, time has been ticking on, so let’s have a little catch up on what’s been happening since Calm before the Storm:

• Writing some posts about useful things I’ve found and learnt.

^ Started a couple, but not quite finished any.

• Re-building my freelance site using WordPress for the back-end.

^ Complete! design-is.co.uk is now a lot more professional looking with a lot more content – head over and have a look.

• Getting up-to-date with admin.

^ Pretty much there, although getting it all organised would be a good thing to do next.

• Getting approval on an improved website (previously mentioned).

^ Unfortunately the corporate cogs haven’t quite found the time yet.

• Contacting existing clients.

^ Hot on the heels of my renovated freelance site came the first instalment of ‘design-is: updated‘, my newsletter to clients and prospects. I foresee this becoming a vital touch point, allowing me to easily inform readers of new offers and services.

• Following up leads.

^ Progress made, but an unending tasks when leads keep coming.

• Investigate post-grad certificate.

^ I wasn’t overly convinced that Birkbeck University knew what courses they were running when I attended their open day, but assuming I can find the cash, I’ll be looking into their offering more thoroughly as the months progress.

Other recent events include the Apple WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) 2009, in which they gave a nice little bump to their laptop range, took us through the latest features of their upcoming operating system Snow Leopard, and released the iPhone we all wish they had released the first time around. Yes, having upgraded from my first generation iPhone, I am now the proud owner of an iPhone 3GS. Now boasting both media messaging and video recording capabilities along side its (slightly) improved camera, this new hardware is the perfect accompaniment to their new OS 3.0 software.

Other noteworthy events include a couple of completed websites (see Case Studies on new design-is.co.uk) and attending the exhibition of finalists for the Young Designers Competition at Dulwich College. Whilst there I caught up with Luke Riggall, the young designer I recently completed a portfolio for who has made quite an impact on the ‘blogosphere’ with his advanced product designs.

Luke Riggall on Novanta, his 'designers desk'.

I hope you’re all enjoying the summery weather that has finally arrived on the wonderful island of Britain!

(If your not in Britain, I hope you’re having lovely weather too ).

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As the tast of browser testing is something that plagues all web designers, I thought I’d put together a short run-down of the currently available solutions. However, there is no definitive answer.

First off, Microsoft’s new SuperPreview sounded good, but this restricts you to IE 6 and the browser you currently have installed, such as IE 7 or IE 8, but not all three at the same time. May be a good solution if future updates included more browser options and live usage of the site in question rather than simple screenshots.

If you can suffice with screenshots and don’t need to test usability and interaction, then services such as browsershots.org, netrenderer and the recently released Alkaline application from Litmus are well worth looking at.

For actually running the browsers reliably at the same time, you will need to have separate machines (virtual or actual). VMware allows you to set up and run several virtual machines at the same time with different software configurations and is currently the solution I’m using.

If you have any other solutions which could help in the never-ending quest for browser compatibility, let us know in the comments

Useful further reading:
SuperPreview announced.
How to Build the Best Browser Test Suite

-UPDATE- (June 3rd)

Adobe has just opened their Browser Lab to public beta testing. Having tried it out today, I can confidently say that this is one to watch. Currently it produces static previews, similar to that offered by other services, almost instantly, once you’ve logged in with your free Adobe ID. Once the beta is closed, they plan to use a subscription based service, similar to Alkaline. It will show you how your site will render in the following browsers:

If developed correctly with the resources it needs, this could become a one-stop-shop solution to browser testing for all web designers and developers.

Why not give it a go and let me know your thoughts?

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Sorry to any readers for the lack of new content! I’ve had a lot on recently and have let my blogging, tweeting and general web presence slip a bit…

I’m a day away from a week long break, after which I hope to achieve a long list of things. These include:

• Writing some posts about useful things I’ve found and learnt.
• Re-building my freelance site using WordPress for the back-end.
• Getting up-to-date with admin.
• Getting approval on an improved website (previously mentioned).
• Contacting existing clients.
• Following up leads.
• Investigate post-grad certificate.

Until then, I’ll leave you with an encounter I had this morning:

A kid in a hoodie mumbled something to be on my way from the bus stop… I stopped, looked at him, and raised my eyebrows to signal he should repeat…

“Can you buy me a cigar please?” said he.

“Sorry?” Said I, looking puzzled – I must have misheard…

“Will you buy a cigar for me..?” he said, louder, using the pound coin in his hand to gesture toward the newsagent next to the bus stop.

Continuing my puzzled look, I simply replied “No…”, walked off, looked back still puzzled, and then headed to work.

A cigar… Whatever next?!

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Although WordPress has peeked my interest lately, I wanted to mention another Open Source CMS that has proved invaluable to my services. Where WordPress, Joomla or Drupal present an overly feature rich environment, this offering from Scratch Media fills the gap perfectly.

CMS from Scratch, as it’s known, is a lightweight, database independent system which can be applied to any static website. The process is fairly straight forward and the guide on the publishers website is simple and easy to follow. A video is also provided demonstrating how to convert your existing site for those that want to see it in action.

The system offers easy text editing via the integrated FCK Editor and the ability to upload files and images to the server, which can then be linked to via the FCK interface. Navigation and galleries are easy enough to construct with the Sets feature and a separate log-in can be provided for clients which will only allow them to access the bits you want them to be able to edit.

Support for the CMS is provided via their forum and the creator of the system, Ben Hunt, is frequently on hand to offer solutions or point you in the right direction. This is also the place to follow the slow, but sure, evolution of the package, as Ben often posts fixes and additions directly to the forum.

I find this the perfect solution for small to medium brochure and marketing websites, providing the client an easy editing function without the complications associated with the more powerful packages.

Being Open Source, there is no charge and it can easily be skinned with your own brand. Their website even offers a white label user guide as a word document which you can amend as you wish and pass on to clients.

You can download CMSfS from it’s google code page.

If you give it a go, let me know what you think with a comment.

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