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May
12
Printing Theme
Filed Under Themes
Long time – no Theme. I did publish a tutorial about theme creation, but it might be scary for many people. I also haven’t heard any success stories, so when I finally got a request for a Theme, I happily obliged. And here it is for all users to enjoy.
It’s actually a themePack file with two variations of the same idea: both are for printing purposes – your Forms will look like regular text documents. The fonts of the “Printing” Theme are true black with no transparency and in five popular sizes (Times: 12-14-18-24-36). I also matched the 12 pt. size for the medium size of the field label font (Arial). Additionally, I removed the Media field border. An empty Media field still shows a border, but once it has content, the border disappears. The borders for the text (number) fields you can turn off yourself – from the View menu.
When you get to the Print dialog, still check the box “don’t print background,” because the background isn’t true white.
And here comes the clue: the second Theme variation (I call it “Invisible”) sets the Field Label font color to true white, which makes your field labels disappear and invisible on the print-out! This feature had been requested before, and I would like to give full credit to my friend Barb for the idea.
Screenshot (Printing Theme; field borders turned off):
Click for a Larger View (Original Size)
Partial Screenshot (“Invisible” Theme)
You can’t see the field label (“Picture”)! This opens up new opportunities: for example, you could use this to create a stationary with a logo – which was another frequent request.
Enjoy!
Download: Printing – Theme
Unzip the file and double-click it: the two Themes will be installed automatically, regardless if Bento is running or not. They will go into the Neutrals folder in the Theme Chooser. If that folder doesn’t exist, it will be created.
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38 Responses to “Printing Theme”
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Excellent! Your “Printing Theme” package loaded perfectly and does the trick — I hope to dig into your instructions from March 4 about customizing further (e.g., to change the font), but in the mean time, thanks for the instantly useful invisible theme.
Thank you very much for the new Theme Pack. It’s very usefull
I made (again) a small review of it on mac-tv.de.
Lieber Oliver,
besten Dank für die netten Worte und Deine Besprechungen im Mac.tv Forum. Wie mein Name verrät, ich bin Österreicher. Ich lebe aber seit 20 Jahren in den USA.
Ich hätte auch gerne ein deutsches Bento…
I’m a new user to Bento 3 (trying to get away from the AppleWorks database that worked so beautifully for me until MacOS 10.6.2). I’m trying to print my forms without the field names, and your “Invisible theme” was recommended. When I click on your download, a ZIP file is saved to my desktop; but opening it does not unzip anything to double click. What to do??? Many thanks….LD
Hi Leeds,
when you unzip the file look for a file with the extension “.themePack” which will install into Bento when you double-click it.
OK….disregard the last query. The unzipped file wasn’t where I thought it would be. Got the “invisible’ theme on the desktop form; but it still prints the field labels even though they don’t show on the screen. Any ideas??? Thanks….LD
Yes, one:
the background of the theme is not true white, so make sure you check “don’t print background” in the print options (print dialog box).
Thx for helping us with printing issues. I am still trying to enlarge the printing font of your “Print” theme. When I open the .plist file, I don’t see anywhere to customize the font sizes. Am I just too think to see it? Your help is greatly appreciated!
RLP
Robert,
you might be looking at the wrong .plist file. You have to dig several layers deep to get inside the .bundle file (which is inside the .themepack file).
Once you’re there, look for the “fieldFont” (for the five sizes).
Florian,
Thx, but still – I navigate Library>Application Support>Bento>Themes>Neutrals>.plsit and I get this:
bundleName
Neutrals
I don’t see anything indicating “field font”. Hope you can clear this up.
Thanks again! It’s not easy to get help here in Saudi Arabia!!!
Robert
Robert,
that is the wrong .plist file. Don’t change that one.
You have to go one level deeper – in the Neutrals folder: ctrl-click the name of the theme you want to change. Choose “show package content.”
A new finder window opens. Click on “contents” then “resources.” There is the .plist file you want.
Change the font size, save the .plist file. Then restart Bento.
Florian,
You’ve helped me get SO close…I trust Bento cannot print larger than 36pt, so I used a font that reads slightly bigger (Futura) so now the field data is acceptable, I just need to enlarge the “label” fonts and get seem to identify what they’re called. Is there a limit as to how large Bento will print them?
Thx again!
Robert,
I haven’t tried to change the label font before, but it should be the one called labelFont (duh…). The size listed in the .plist file is probably the medium size.
I’m not aware that Bento has a font size limitation for printing. So for both settings (labelFont and high point sizes) you just have to experiment.
Tell me how it turns out!
I surrender. I changed every font size I could find and still no increase in label size. And I also seem to have maxed out the print size to 36 pt…even though I made it 60 pt in the .plist. But it suits my purposes for now…thanks again for the help. I’ll keep playing around once I have some time.
Robert
Robert,
I’ll play with it myself and will report back.
Robert,
I found out three things: the 60 pt clearly works for me! Are you sure you changed the right parameter? The key is called “fieldFont_largest.” And to make totally sure you’re not missing the obvious step: back in Bento change the text size to “largest” in the Forms menu…
I wasn’t able to change the field label font size. As it turns out, by “labelFont” they mean the labels inside the list fields (addresses, URLs,…).
But since Bento 3 offers three label font sizes for the fields, the biggest one is actually pretty big. You are aware of this setting in the Forms menu, I assume.
And again, as a reminder: you have to quit and restart Bento after each new change you make to the .plist file. And make sure it stays a plain text file.
To anyone who might have followed our discussion, here’s the good result:
Robert and I continued the discussion over email. I created a Bento template for him that replaces his pre-printed form from Word with all the data built in.
The problem was that Bento does not have any page guides on its forms. When you try to print a form, Bento squeezes the data into whatever paper size and orientation you choose. So you have to play around until you get the desired results. We finally did, but it would be nice if Bento had a print setting with a WYSIWYG option where a 60 pt font actually prints at 60 pt!
Wow, thanks for the printing and invisible themes. Perfect for emailing pdf’s of my case summaries. I’m a big Bento user, and I seem to be creating a new form every day.
I successfully installed the 2 themes, and chose “don’t print background” for the invisible theme, but I still get those pesky field titles in my document. I’m using Bento 2. Is that the problem, or do you have another idea that can help me? I’m trying to print Certificates for my student, but can’t have those field titles in the way! Thanks so much!
Beverley,
It should work fine in Bento 2. The field label font “color” is true white. Maybe your paper is not 100% white? Try saving it as a PDF and print from there. I will do a test on my printer and report on the results.
Beverley, I got it. I can’t explain it, but it works. PRINT the background (it won’t print anything), or in other words, don’t check “don’t print background.” The field labels now really disappear! I hope it works for you as well as it just did for me (in my Bento 3). Report back briefly, please.
Hey there
Loving your template. Quick question: I am using Bento 3 and it always prints the boarders around the field. However, there are no boarders in your screenshot. Can someone advise?
Thanks a ton!
Gaudenz
Gaudenz,
this is an easy one. You can turn off the field borders from Bento’s View menu, then they won’t print. When the mouse is on the form, the borders show, once you move it over the library pane, they disappear again.
Hi,
There are tree different font size for the field label. But the biggest one isn’t big enough for me. I tried to change this in the .plist file but it seems not to be possible!
How can I change the font size of the field label?
Thanks for this site!!
Jo, you can’t. So if you’re talking about how it looks on-screen, you’re out of luck.
But if you’re talking about the print-out, my suspicion is that your layout is the problem. I’ve printed forms with the biggest field label font size and it looks good.
To test my theory, create a form with just one field, set the field label font size to the largest size, and print the form. Now compare the print-out to an earlier one. If there is a size difference, you have to make sure that your layout comes closer to match your paper size. Unfortunately, Bento doesn’t have on-screen guides (like a word processor does), and it always squeezes the layout onto the printed page, so it takes some experimenting to get the perfect print-out.
Hope that helps.
Hi Florian!
Thanks for your quick answer! I tested your theory about the print layout and IT WORKS! The print out label font size is now bigger!
Thanks a lot!
Hi,
The printing theme is excellent, and I’m able to see that the fields can be bigger if there’s one per page.
However, I’ve tried re-arranging the form to increase the font size with no luck. If there’s less on the form it just seems to compress everything and leave a blank space at the bottom!
Help!
Dilshan,
I can try to help you, but it’s much faster and easier if we do it with an iChat session (preferred) or Skype. Email me and tell me when you have time to do that.
THANK YOU!!! I was pointed to your theme by Bento support and it perfectly fits the bill. Now I can actually print letters based on my database without the labels.
Perfect!
Unfortunately when using the Printing theme or Neutrals, I get black vertical lines across the window.
Reid,
I don’t understand why you have that problem. I just tried both themes again on my computer and they work just fine. And I haven’y heard from anyone else who had any problems.
Which version of Bento are you using? What size of display? I’m just grasping at any kind of explanation; like an unusual setup.
I’m using Bento 4 and display is 1920×1200. It is a bit odd for sure. Bento’s themes work fine though.
and actually, they’re horizontal lines (oopsy).
Reid,
I’m also using Bento 4.02 and my display resolution is 1920×1080; so I have very similar conditions. I can still not understand why this is happening. Tell me a few more things:
how are the black horizontal lines spaced, how many do you see at a time on your screen? Second, are the lines also showing up on the printout? What if you tell Bento not to print the background?
Thanks.
I haven’t tried printing it, but I can tell you that they are evenly spaced, about 1.5″ apart and are very thin. I can send you a screen cap if you like.
There’s all sort of little things I’m trying to work though setting up a rather large artwork database including consignment forms, etc. which is why I’m being a bit particular. Thanks so much for getting back to me and I look forward to your revamped database manager too!
Reid, definitely try printing it, but also send me a screen cap to Florian@bentousers.com
BTW, the database manager is written by my colleague Simon, but I’m not sure it’ll ever be done…
Hi Florian,
I just emailed you an example of the consignment form. I also printed it and yes, the lines appear although this isn’t nearly as annoying as how small the whole thing prints out at! I’ve made the form itself HUGE on screen and yet it’s prints teeny especially the related data field. I should check here and see if you guys have done an invoice template -that might work better.
Like I said, one of many issues I’ve been running into!
Best to you and thanks so much again!
Bonni,
printing forms is a big shortcoming of Bento. It squeezes any form into the page size you select in the printing dialog. So you have to adjust the size on the screen until it looks like you want.