Primera SureThing User Manual

ii

© 1994–2001 MicroVision Development, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a

retrieval system, or translated into any language in any form by any means without the
written permission of MicroVision Development, Inc.

MicroVision Development, Inc.
P.O. Box 130023
Carlsbad, CA 92009

The Sentry Spelling-Checker Engine © 1993 Wintertree Software, Inc.
MicroVision™ and the SureThing logo are trademarks, and SureThing® is a registered

trademark of MicroVision Development, Inc. Other brands or products are trademarks or
registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.

Restrictions
You are encouraged to make a reasonable number of backup copies of the Software for your

own use. You are not allowed to make unlimited copies. The Software is protected by the
copyright laws and international treatises that pertain to computer software. It is illegal to
make copies of the Software except for backup purposes. It is illegal to give copies to
another person, or to duplicate the Software by any other means, including electronic
transmission. The Software contains trade secrets, and in order to protect them you may
not decompil e, reverse engineer, disassemble, or otherwise reduce the Software to human­perceivable form. You may not modify, adapt, translate, rent, lease, or create derivative
works based upon the Software or any part thereof.

Warranty
MicroVision warrants that the original disks are free from defects in material and work-

manship, assuming normal use, for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of purchase.
If a defect occurs during this period, you may return your faulty disk to MicroVision, along
with a dated proof of purchase, for a free replacement.

EXCEPT FOR THE EXPRESS WARRANTY OF THE ORIGINAL DISKS SET FORTH ABOVE, MICROVISION GRANTS NO

WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, BY STATUTE OR OTHERWISE, REGARDING THE DISKS AND

OTHER

MATERIALS, THEIR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE, THEIR QUALITY, THEIR MERCHANTABILITY, OR

RELATED
OTHERWISE
TO
FOR

. THE LIABILITY OF MICROVISION UNDER THE WARRANTY SET FORTH ABOVE SHALL BE LIMITED

THE AMOUNT PAID BY THE CUSTOMER FOR THE PRODUCT. IN NO EVENT SHALL MICROVISION BE LIABLE

ANY SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR OTHER DAMAGES FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY.

Credits

Engineering Robert B ushner

Jim Mayall
John H. Gaby
Patrick Wright

User’s Guide Sean Cavanaugh

Jim Mayall

Online Help Jim Law
SmartDesig ns Garvey

Jim Mayall
Sean Cavanaugh

Testing & Support Ben Dougl as

Pete Calkins
Tony Tran
Nyeland Newel
David Rast
Sean Kelley

iii

Editing & Misc Robin Ralston

Paul Cary

iv

Con t e n ts

Introducing SureThing CD Labeler 6

About this manual 6
System requirements 6
Installing SureThing CD Labeler 7
Registration 7
Getting Help 7
Technical Support 7

The SureThing Environment 9

Label Blocks 12

Turning blocks on and off 12
Selecting Tools 14
Using Object Tools 14
Setting Program Options 14

Entering User Information 15

Internet Ta b 15

Appearance Ta b 15
Zooming In and Out 15

Working with the Software 17

Starting SureThing 17
Creating a New Label 17
SmartDesign Basics 19
Working with Text 20

Editing T ext Frames 20

Adding a New Text Frame 22

Changing the Size and Position of a Text Frame 22

Inserting Merge Fields in Text Frames 23

Formatting Text in a Text Frame 24

Editing T ext Effects 24

Selecting different types of Text Effects 25

Adding a New Text Effect 26

Working with the Software (continued)

Working with Logos and Clipart 27

Editing a Logo 27

Adding Clipart to Your Label 28
Working with Backgrounds 29

Using Y our Own Backgrounds 30

Using a Background Color 30
Acquiring Images 31
Changing the Label Stock 31
Duplicating a Label Design 31
Saving Y our Label 33

Saving a design with a new filename 33
Calibrating Y our Printer 34
Printing 34
Working with Label Templates 35

Creating Customized Layouts using the Template Creation Wizard 35

Saving Existing Designs as Templates 37

Deleting Templates 38
Introduction to Playlists 39

The Playlist Manager 39

A Quick Walk-Through 40

Compilation Music CDs 41

For Advanced Users 41
Working with Playlists 42

Importing a Playlist Using the New CD Wizard 42

Importing a Playlist to an Existing Design 43

Applying a Playlist from Your Playlist Database 44

Creating a Custom Playlist with the Playlist Database 44

Creating Your Own Playlist Data 45

More Info on the Playlist Manager 46

Displaying Playlists Fields or Data 47

v

6

In tr oduci ng S ur eThin g CD Labeler

elcome to SureThing CD
Labeler–intelligent labeling

W

to creat e attractive labels q uic kly and
efficientl y.

You can use SureThing CD Labeler to
create any type of CD label. Our Smart-
Design system is perfect for m usic CDs,
interactive mul timedia titles, Pho toCDs, or
even simple backups, for example. It
doesn’t matter whether you’re a novice
designer or an art director, SureThing CD
Labeler gives you ease of use and profes­sional results at the same time. Smart-
Designs are capable of building jus t about
any type of layout simply by clicking your
choices. You can also modify them or even
build your own layouts from scratch.

There’s no need to worry about measure­ments or lin in g things up proper l y because
SureThing CD Labele r ha ndles th a t for you
autom atica lly. It’s pre-configured to work
with many popular label stocks, leaving
you free to be creative and focus on your
designs.

SureThing CD Labeler also comes with a
large collection of backgrounds, textures
and clipart you can use in your labels and
designs, an d o f course yo u can also
incorporat e your existing images and
artwork into any label design.

You can even merge information from CD
playlists, a database or CSV file, and print
sets of labels, or numbered series.

software that gives you the tools

About this manual

The SureThi ng CD Labeler User Guide
pro vides the essential information you
need to get u p and running as quickly as
possible. The goal of this manual is to give
you a go od overvi ew of the p ro gram’s
features and functionality. It’s not so much
a command re fe rence as it is a general
reference. The program’s built-in Help
system is the best place to find typical
command reference information. The Help
system also contains a number o f useful
mini-tutorials, tips and techniques for
using SureThing.

We assume you have a basic working
knowledge of your computer and operating
system, including ho w t o choose menu
commands, operate the mouse, select text,
and work with files (opening, closing and
saving, for example).

System requirements

Here are the bare bone requirements
needed to run SureThing:

• PC with 486 or faster proce ssor

• Window s 95, 98, ME or 2000

• 16 MB RAM (64 MB for Windows 2000)

• 64 MB of available hard disk space

• Inkjet or Laser printer recommended

SURETHING CD LABELER

User’s Guide

7

Installing SureThing

This section describes how to install the
SureThing CD Labeler software on your
computer.

We recommend that you quit all currently
runn ing prog rams. Doin g so frees up
memory and resources and minimizes the
chance of installation errors.

1 Insert the Sur eThin g installa tion CD in to
your CD-ROM drive.

2 Double-click the file named Setup.exe.
This launches the installation that will walk

you through the process of installing
SureThing CD Labeler on your hard disk.
If Au t o-run is turned on, the Setup
program will load automatically when you
insert the SureThing CD.

Registration

Please take a moment to register Sure­Thing. Regist ering the software en titles y o u
to technical support as well notification of
program updates and upgrades. To register
the software choose Register SureThing
from the Help menu to go directly to our
reg is tr at io n web p ag e. If you don’t have
access to the Internet, you can register by
calling MicroVi sion a t 800.998.4555, or

760.438.7781.

Getting Help

sensitive. In other words, it will jump
directly to the specific topic related to the
feature or command you are working
with. When no specific feature or com­mand is detected, choosing Help takes you
to the help system’s index or topic list. The
Help system also contains a number of
helpful tutorials, tips and techniques.

To access help:

• Press the F1 key any time you are using
SureThing CD Labeler, or choose the
Contents command from the Help menu.

• In many dialog boxes you can press a
Help button, which opens the help topic
for that dialog box (and even if you don’t
see a Help button in a dialog box, you can
still press F1).

Technical Support

If you have a question or problem with
SureThing CD Label er that you ca nnot
adequat ely an s we r or solve using th e
manual or help syste m, technical su ppo rt is
available from MicroVision Development.

SureThing on the Web

If you have access to the Internet, this is
definitely the best option. Our web si t e is
kept current with answer s to fr eque n t ly
asked questions (FAQs), pr ogram updates
and patches, and a user-to-user support
forum. Visit our website at

www.surething.com

SureThing CD Labeler has a complete help
system accessible anytime the program is
running. Much of the help is context-

You can access our web site directly from
SureThing’s Help menu. Options are
available to register the software, order

8 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

label supplies, and check for software
updates. Choose SureThing on the Web
from the Help menu at any time to
automatically launch your web browser
and go to our site.

Online support

Online support, including e-mail, FAQs
and user-to-user forums are just a click
away. Set your web browser to the
following URL and follow the links to our
support section:

www.surething.com

Fax or mail support

You can mail or fax questions to us at the
following:

MicroVision Dev elopment
P.O. Box 130023
Carlsbad, CA 92009

Fax line: 760-438-7406

Telephone support

You can also phone us directly and speak
with a technical support representative.
Telephone support is available Monday–
Friday 9:00am–4:30pm P aci fic time.

Support line: 760-438-0305

The Sur eThing Enviro nment

9

he SureThing environment is not
too diff erent from wh at you’re

T

already familiar with in other
Windows applications. It includes a menu
bar at the top of the screen, the tabbed
label window (the number of tabs depends
on the brand of label you are using), and

Menu bar

a collection of tools for creating and
editing elements such as label text, text
effects, backgrounds, images, borders, etc.

At the bottom of the screen are buttons
you click to cycle through the various
SmartDesigns.

Command bar

Control Strip

Speed Tools*

Design bar

* Speed Tools are turned off by default, but you can turn them on by choosing View Options from the V iew menu.

Variation bar

10 CHAPTER 2

The SureThing Environment

Design bar Speed Tools (default set)

Calibrate Printer
Print

The icons along the left of the

Printer Setup

screen are shortcut menus to
commonly performed tasks.

Click the arrow to toggle the
display of the Design bar on
and off. Turning it off gives
more room to the design
window.

Undo/Redo
Cut, Copy & Paste

Text F rame tool
Picture tool
Text Effect tool

Find
Replace
Find Next

Bring to Front
Send to Back

Select All
Set Program Options
Show Item

Set Merge File
Change Label Stocks
Template Info

Control Strip

Text mode
Object mode

Rotate tool
Transparency tool

Font color menu
Bold, Italic, Underline options

Text alignment menu
Vertical text alignment menu

Get contents from CD
Select a playlist for this design

Font menu
Font Size menu

Zoom In
Zoom Out
Fit in Window

Object tools list:

• Text Frame tool

• Picture tool

• T ext Effects tool

• Line tool

• Rectangle tool

• Round-Corner Rectangle tool

• Ellipse tool

• Insert OLE Object tool

• Text tool

• Object selection tool

• Rotate tool

• Transparency tool

• Crop Picture tool

SURETHING CD LABELER

User’s Guide

11

Label Design Area

Rulers (click and drag to create
alignment guide lines).

Tabs for each component of
the label sheet (referred to as
“Blocks”)

Sample
Text Effect

Sample
Text Frame

Label edge
Bleed area
Non-printing area

(Clip to Label)

In T ext Mode, the horizontal ruler
changes to a paragraph indent
and tab ruler corresponding to the
currently selected text frame.

The Label Design Area is where you create
and edit your label. Each label block has its
own tab at the top of the design area. The
number of tabs displayed here depends on
the label stock you are using (specific to
each label sheet). The example above
contains blocks for the CD label itself and
a jewel case spine. By default, only the CD
Label block is active – the others appear in
parentheses. Clicking a tab activates the
block, however, and also turns it on in the
Pri n t dialo g box. If you don’t want to edit
and/or print these blocks, you can turn
them off again by choosing the Blocks

command from V iew menu, and then
selecting Show/Hide.

The area displayed in crosshatch indicates
the area outside of the label. If you place
an object, such as a text frame or logo,
over the crosshatch, the portion that over­laps the crosshatch will not be displayed
on screen. You can turn off crosshatching
by toggling the Clip to Label command
under the View menu. When Clip to Label is
turned off, all objects are displayed regard­less of their placement on the label.

12 CHAPTER 2

The SureThing Environment

Label Blocks

We ment ion ed th e con ce pt of “block s” in
the preceding section. A block is a group of
identical labels found on a label sheet. For
example, all of the CD labels on a sheet
form a block of CD labels.

On many label sheets, you will find mul­tiple blocks of labels on the same sheet
where each block of labels is intended for
a different purpose. For example, Sure­Thing CD Labels include two blocks: CD
labels for the CD itself and spine labels to
go on the spine of a CD jewel case.

Consider the following example:

Turning blocks on and off

You select the blocks you want to design
and edit by clicking their corresponding
tabs at the top of the design window. This
turns on a block and activates its design
window if it wasn’t already activated. You
can turn off blocks using the Blocks >
Show/Hide command under the View
menu. When you turn a block off, its tab
appears in parentheses, and it’s no longer
displayed in blue in the Print dialog box,
indicating that it will not be printed. If it is
on, however, it will be printed.

In the following Print dialog box, you can
tell that only the CD label block has been
turned on, because it’s the only block that
appears in blue. The blue areas indicate
active blocks, letting you know which ones
will be printed.

A typical label sheet (SureThing CD Labels)

The circles in the center are, of course, the
CD labels. The first tab in the design win­dow corresponds to this block. The thin
rectangles to the left and right of the CD
labels are jewel case spines, and corre­spond to the second tab in the design
window.

After activating the other blocks, notice
that they now also appear in blue:

Command Bar

SURETHING CD LABELER

User’s Guide

13

The buttons along the top of the design
area (New, Open, Save, etc.) perform the
same function as some commonly used
menu commands. They’re located here for
your convenience.

The Add button makes a copy of the
current design. You can then edit the copy,
changing background, text, and layout, for
example, leaving the original intact. The
Add button provides an easy way to
produce a series of labels with different
layouts and data. The Del button deletes

Variation Bar

The Variation Bar lets you cycle through
the various SmartDesigns available to a
particular label stock. The first button,
Background, lets you choose from various
backgrounds for your label design. The
second button controls the overall layout

the current label. The << (previous) and
>> (next) buttons let you navigate be­tween labels. All four buttons correspond
to the Designs commands under the Tools
menu.

(Note: The Add command is not the
method you use to print multiple copies of
a label – use the Print command and enter
the number of copies you want to print for
that – but rather a means to create differ­ent layouts, backgrounds, text, etc., within
the same file.)

of your label. The third button contains
font variations appropriate for each layout.
Click the arrows to the left or right of a
button to move back and forth between
the variations, or click in the center of the
button for a pop-up menu.

14 CHAPTER 2

The SureThing Environment

Selecting Tools

You select a tool by clicking it with the
mouse. Some tools bring up dialog boxes
(such as the Picture tool, for example),
others change the shape of the cursor,
indicating you can create an object based
on the type of tool you selected. These are
also kn o wn a s th e Object Tools.

When you move the mouse over a tool
without clicking it, the name of the tool is
displayed. For an overview of each tool,
see the online Help.

Using Object T ools

The tools used to create objects work in
the following fashion:

1 Select the tool (either from the tool
menu on the Control Strip, or from the
Obje c t Tools l is t un de r th e Tools me nu) .

2 Click and continue holding down the
mouse button at the location in the label
design area where you want to create the
object.

Setting Program Options

A numb e r of Sure Th i ng’s se tt i ng s ca n b e
customized. These include startup options,
display options, toolbar and ruler settings,
etc. Some of these options are set in the
Options dialog box (choose the Program
Options command from the Too ls menu),
others are turned on and off under the
View menu. These settings are saved each
time you exit SureThing.

To change V iew Options:

• Choose View Options from the View
menu to turn the display of selected items
on or off. The commands under this sub­menu toggle on and off – a check mark
next to an op t i on in di c ate s it’s on; s ele c t it
again to turn it off.

3 While still holding down the mouse
button, drag the size you want the object
to appear.

4 When you are satisfied with the size of
the object, release the mouse and the
object is created.

Most object tools work in the manner
described above. Some tools display dialog
boxes where you can open and insert files,
enter text, etc.

To change settings in the Options dialog bo x:

1 Choose the Program Options command
from the Tools menu, or click the
button at the bottom of the Design bar.

Program Options dialog box

2 Make any changes you see fit. Press

Help for more information about a specific
option.

3 Click OK to save your settings and close
the Program Options dialog box.

SURETHING CD LABELER

User’s Guide

Internet Tab

The Internet tab of the Program Options
dialog box lets you select an Internet
Playlist Server , enable reading of CD Text,
and configure a proxy server.

Internet Playlist Server

SureThing defaults to the server
www2.freedb.org/cgi-bin/cddb.cgi, but you
can change this to another server that
prov i de s pl ay l ist info r m at i o n. To ch a ng e
the program back to the default server,
click th e Use Defaul t Server option.

The Connect to server without prompting
option is primarily intended for users who
are online all the time, such as those who
use cable modem systems or LAN con­nections for example. If you connect to the
Internet via a dial-up service, you may
wish to be prompted.

15

You can als o t urn on or of f the dis pl ay of
certain items by choosing View Options
under the View menu.

User Info Tab

SureThing labels can be designed to use
merge fields from databases or from the
User Info tab of the Progra m Options dialog
box. We encou rag e you to t ake a m ome nt
to fill this information out.

Fill in information in any of the fields that
are appropriate for you. Leave any
unnecessary fields blank (you should
delete the sample text).

Enable CD Text

CD Text is a recent addition to the CD
audio specification allowing disc and track
related information to be added to stan­dard audio CDs for playback on suitably
equipped CD audio players.

If the Enable Rea d i n g CD Text option is
turned on, SureThing will first attempt to
read CD Text when gathering playlist in­formation. If no CD Text is detected, Sure­Thing will then search the Internet Playlist
Server for information about the CD.

Proxy Server

Enter the address and port number of the
proxy server you wish to connect to. If
you’re unsure about proxy server settings,
chance are you are not using one.