Advanced Designer Objects

Owned by Roman Villandry
Last updated: Apr 30, 2018
2 min read

Overview

Sometimes advanced features are required that are not included as standard objects in the CardDesigner, below are a few examples:

The card design is basically made up of XML objects, so you can copy the provided XML for each example below directly onto the card design within the card designer.
Then you can edit the source of that object as well as fonts/colours etc… as you need to.


Forced Greyscale Image

This option will format an image as greyscale, even if the supplied image is colour by changing the specified Pixel Format. Details on the available options for this can be found here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.media.pixelformats(v=vs.110).aspx

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<cedImage Source="{cedMapping ColumnName=ID#32;Number, DatabaseName=Internal#32;Database, Prefix=C:#92;Users#92;Public#92;Documents#92;CardExchange#92;Data#92;Photos#92;, Suffix=.jpg}" Width="45.0448979591837" Height="59.9673469387755" cedTemplate.DisplayName="Image1" cedLayoutPage.Left="28.3591836734694" cedLayoutPage.Top="30.3918367346939" xmlns="clr-namespace:CardExchangeDesignerX;assembly=CardExchangeDesignerX" xmlns:av="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation">
	<cedImage.PixelFormat>
		<cedScript Converter="{cedNullCheckConverter FallbackValue=Default}">
			<cedScriptDefinition>'Gray16'</cedScriptDefinition>
		</cedScript>
	</cedImage.PixelFormat>
</cedImage>


Mirrored Text

This will give you two text objects on the card design, one displaying the text correctly and the other one mirrored underneath. You could also set a gradient on the mirrored text to make it look like a reflection.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<cedFrameworkElementCollection xmlns="clr- namespace:CardExchangeDesignerX;assembly=CardExchangeDesignerX" mlns:av="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation">
	<cedTextBlock Text="Look#32;at#32;this!" FontFamily="Tahoma" FontSize="32" FontWeight="Bold" TextAlignment="Center" Width="202.409799554566" Height="44.0178173719377" cedTemplate.DisplayName="Text1" cedLayoutPage.Left="59.5322939866369" cedLayoutPage.Top="60" />
	<cedTextBlock Text="Look#32;at#32;this!" FontFamily="Tahoma" FontSize="32" FontWeight="Bold" Foreground="#FFA7A7A7" TextAlignment="Center" Width="202.409799554566" Height="44.0178173719377" cedTemplate.DisplayName="Text1" cedLayoutPage.Left="59.532293986637" cedLayoutPage.Top="82">
		<cedTextBlock.RenderTransform>
			<av:ScaleTransform ScaleY="-1" />
		</cedTextBlock.RenderTransform>
	</cedTextBlock>
</cedFrameworkElementCollection>


Reversed Text

This will give you one text object with the text displayed in reverse, this would be useful for Window cling stickers and when using embossers.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<cedTextBlock Text="Look#32;at#32;this!" FontFamily="Tahoma" FontSize="32" FontWeight="Bold" Foreground="#FFA7A7A7" TextAlignment="Center" Width="202.409799554566" Height="44.0178173719377" cedTemplate.DisplayName="Text2" cedLayoutPage.Left="63.9583655288394" cedLayoutPage.Top="45.3795918367345" xmlns="clr-namespace:CardExchangeDesignerX;assembly=CardExchangeDesignerX" xmlns:av="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation">
	<cedTextBlock.RenderTransform>
		<av:ScaleTransform ScaleX="-1" />
	</cedTextBlock.RenderTransform>
</cedTextBlock>


Vertical Text

CardExchange does not have the option to add a text object with the text displayed vertically.

A workaround for this is to use a monospace font, these are fonts where each letter is the same width.

What you can do is to insert a standard text object, choose a monospace font and set the option to enable word wrapping. Now make the text box height the full height of the word, but have the width as only one letter.

Now each letter will wrap to the next line as shown below:

In Microsoft Word 2007 on Windows, the following fonts seem to be fixed-length (monospace):

  • BatangChe
  • Consolas
  • Courier New
  • DFKai-SB
  • DotunChe
  • GulimChe
  • GungSahChe
  • KaiTi
  • Lucida Console
  • MingLiU
  • MS Gothic
  • MS MinChe
  • NSimSun
  • SimHei
  • Simplified Arabic Fixed
  • SimSun
  • SimSun-ExtB