Thursday, August 21, 2008

Eureka!

I just realized that we actually can group and resize our designs now that we have the up and down nudge buttons! This is HUGE!!!

I quickly did these two tests in the software - first I thought (with the Olympics going on) we should be able to do a file of the rings - and that was simple now that we can weld silhouetted shapes and not lose the centers. Here is a screen shot of the rings in three sizes - done once and then resized with the lower right "handle"


This is a super simple example (and it took less than three minutes!) so I decided to try doing the same thing to the "Sugar and Spice" design I posted a screen shot of yesterday. I will write up a full tutorial as soon as I can but the basic method is to keep all of the design components in the same "box."

By doing this you will be able to use the four nudge buttons to put the pieces in the correct positions and keep the entire "unit" together just as we have been able to do all along with the titles in a straight line. You don't have to click on the arrow button repeatedly - just hold down the button until the object is in the desired position.

Here is my Sugar and Spice design screen shot - done once, copied and pasted as a unit and then resized.



You need to be sure to select the correct size for each piece as you go along. Drawbacks I see so far are that you can't select items at a default of less than one inch and not being able to resize the elements without using the slider bar. To adapt an older design start a new mat using the preview of the original design as your template (that is how I did the Sugar "& Spice scalable version).

I hope you get the idea from this brief explanation and I promise to give more elaborate instructions once I can get a tutorial together!

This is going to be so much fun!

9 comments:

  1. Thank you for pointing this out. I thought about it for a bit in bed last night but thought to myself no it still wont work right. Well this will work! Thanks for being such a great tester and letting us know how to do things.

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  2. Very cool! So as long as elements are added to the same "selection" and then using the Nudge buttons. Awesome!!

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  3. Thanks so much for your awesome blog - you're a great teacher! :)

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  4. Well done, this is great! not sure that I understand it yet though so will wait for the tutorial!!! Thank you so much, your blog is great :)

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  5. Did you know that you are the BEST?? If not let me tell you "YOU ARE THE BEST"

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  6. Thanks for sharing all your discoveries with all of us :)

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  7. Thank you for sharing. I had no idea we could do this. I can't wait to try it out.

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  8. I tried it, and I can believe I actually did it!! Thanks!

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