The positioning and resizing of elements on the page is normally achieved through the use of the mouse.
When hovering over a selected element, the mouse displays a Hand cursor indicating that by clicking the left button you can drag the element. Once you have reached the desired position, release the mouse button to end the dragging operation.
You can move an element horizontally only by holding the ALT+SHIFT keys, and vertically only by holding ALT+CTRL keys.
When the mouse cursor hovers over a selected element edge, it will display the typical arrow-like cursor (depending on system settings) to indicate that you can resize the element. Click and hold the left mouse button to drag the element's border and release when done.
It is possible to move or resize multiple elements at the same time.
Select all elements you want to move/resize by using one of these two methods:
1) Select all elements while holding the CTRL key down.
2) Click on an empty area of the label, hold the left mouse button down and drag the cursor. All elements below the selection rectangle will be automatically selected.
Once you have selected the last element, release the CTRL key (or release the left mouse button) and move or resize the selected elements.
This working mode (multi-selection) is applicable on elements belonging to the same context. For example, you can select multiple elements belonging to the same group, or you can select multiple page elements, but you can't select elements belonging to different label groups or label elements and page elements.
Note that for label elements (texts, barcodes, and graphic elements) the dragging or resizing is only enabled when the element is inside the group it belongs to. In other words, if an element has been moved, and one of its borders has been placed outside the label area, the mouse cursor won't have any effect on that border.
In this case, or any time you need to make accurate modifications to the element coordinates or size, you can use the Position tab in the element Settings dialog box, common to all elements.
The Advanced tab displays 5 text boxes that enable you to define coordinates, size and rotation:
- Left: position of the left border. For page elements, this value refers to the page left border. For all label elements, this value refers to the label left edge.
- Top: position of the top border. For page elements, this value refers to the page top border. For all label elements, this value refers to the label top edge.
- Width: horizontal size of the element.
- Height: vertical size of the element.
- Rotation: value in degrees of the element rotation.
These text boxes will only accept numbers, the minus sign and the decimal separator. The values can be expressed in inches or centimeters depending on the option set in the User interface tab of the Options dialog box.
Two additional controls are also present:
- Enable mouse action: check box that enables you to define if the mouse is able to act on this element.
- Name: the element name. The text entered here (max 32 characters) will be displayed during mouse move (if the Show names on mouse move option is active) and in the view menu.
If the Enable mouse action
check box is deselected,
the mouse won't have any effect on the element. That is,
you will be no longer able to move, resize or rotate the element using the mouse. This option might be useful if you want to, for example, place the element on the label background, and still permit the Group settings
dialog box to be displayed if you click on the label area. Or, it might be necessary to ensure that an element is not accidentally moved or resized.
In any case please remember that: