nisus.com

Posted: **2009-08-03 07:26:11**

Well, I know that I can't have background color in Page VIew (the only place to see/work on footnotes...boo), but it seems also impossible to set background color for a document so that a generated PDF will have this color.

Is there a way around this perhaps?

I find that for reading text on-screen (for which purpose the PDFs I generate are made) is much much easier on the eyes if there is a light background color. (Kino taught this to me years ago...) I suppose I could ante up for Acrobat...or maybe PDFpen will do it...but if there's a way in NWP I'd love to know.

Posted: **2009-08-03 09:14:15**

IIRC I just repeated Geoff's recommendation of the very light yellow. And, me too, I continue to use it everywhere I can set a background color.

As you noticed, NW Pro does not have the ability to set a back ground color except in Draft view. A workaround is to apply Background Color (under Format menu) on all texts. This is far from perfect and some portions would be left white but the background color will be preserved in PDF files.

As predefined colors are too strong, you have to do some trials and errors to create an appropriate color using Colors palette.

1. Format:Background Color:Show Background Colors to let Apple's Colors palette show up.

2. Create an appropriate color using the Colors palette, e.g red 255, green 255, blue 242 using RGB sliders.

3. If you have got a satisfactory result, drag and drop the color onto one of the tiny squares at the bottom of the palette to save it.

4. Edit:Select:Select All Document and apply the color.

You can macroize those operations by something like this.

Code: Select all

$backgroundColor = Color.newWithRGB255 255, 255, 242  # customize RGB values as you like

$doc = Document.active
if $doc == undefined  # i.e. if there is no open document
	exit
end

$sels = Array.new  # create text selection objects corresponding to Select All Document
foreach $text in $doc.allTexts
	if $text.length
		$sel = TextSelection.new $text
		$sels.appendValue $sel
	end
end

Push Target Selection $sels
	Set Background Color $backgroundColor
Pop Target Selection

Posted: **2009-08-03 09:31:19**

Thank you , Kino.

This is a (sometimes helpful) kludge that makes life a bit better, but as you say it's not really so good. Wherever there is no text, there is white space. Not a very acceptable end-product.

I confess I don't understand why apparently so few people realize the value of having such color on-screen. It's not about eye candy—it's about eye strain.

This matter of on-screen color is one that keeps me turning to Mellel. Wish it weren't so.

Thanks again.

nisus.com

Background color (not really again)

Background color (not really again)

Re: Background color (not really again)

Re: Background color (not really again)