Introducing QR codes, barcodes and more in Writer!

Introducing QR codes, barcodes and more in Writer!

Hi there! 

We've rolled out some exciting new updates this month—from improving the way you work with existing merge fields to adding new merge elements. We simply can't wait to tell you all about it! 
 
You can see our official announcement here, and read on to learn all about our new improvements and additions.
 
 

Improvement to existing merge fields


1. Format your merge field text
You no longer need to manually format the text in your data source before merging. With this update, regardless of the previous format of your data, you can update your merged text to sentence case, title case, and more.

2. Fit or fill your merge images
Merging images can sometimes be tricky. The output image could end up stretched to different proportions or may not fit the merged document correctly. To avoid such mishaps, Image Fields in Writer now come with three options to either fit or fill your merged images in the output document.  

  • Fill Frame Proportionally – this increases the image size proportionally until it has filled the entire frame.
  • Fit Images Proportionally – this option fits the image inside the frame and maintains its proportions.
  • Fit Images to Frame – this option adjusts the image's proportions to fit the width and height to that of the frame's width and height.

3. Combine your merge fields
Most questionnaires or forms today have two lines for addresses—AddressLine 1, for the main street address, and Address Line 2 for supplementary address information (such as an apartment or unit number). If you want to combine both the lines into one field upon merge, you can do so using the composite field option in Writer. This way, Address Line 1 and 2 will be merged to become one address field.

To learn more about inserting merge fields, click here.
 
 
New merge elements

 1. List merge fields
Say you have your candidate's skills separated by commas in your data source. With the Merge as List option, that array of skills will now be merged to appear in an easy-to-read list. Similarly, if you want to merge multiple images into one field, the images would be merged to appear in a list as well. 
 
2. Dynamic Watermarks
Easily auto-generate your watermark fields in Writer based on a field in your data source. Say you want to send personalized documents to different companies, using the respective company's logo as the document watermark. By using merge fields from your data source as the value for your watermark, each custom document generated will have the corresponding company's logo as the watermark. 
 
3. QR and Bar Codes
Nearly every product available for purchase today, from milk cartons to airline boarding passes, are marked with bar codes or QR codes containing information for easy access and checkout. Adding them to a document with Writer is as easy as it gets. Once inserted, you can either give it a fixed value or use a dynamic field as its value—based on which custom QR and bar codes will be automatically generated.  
 
 4. Rich Text
With this update, the merge fields will retain any font style, color, or format in your data source. For instance, if your data source used bold text in bulleted lists, your merged fields would retain the same rich text.
 
5. Check Box
Based on the values in your data source, you can merge your field to check a box or not. For instance, if the answer to the question "Do you have a valid passport?" in your data source is "yes," the answer to this question will be merged as a checked box upon merge. If the answer is 'no," this box will not be checked. 
 
6. Dynamic Images
Imagine you're an instructor and want to send report cards to all your trainees or your student's parents with each report card containing the respective student's picture. Using Writer, you can now easily merge each person's picture into their report card. 
 
7. Dynamic links to images
To continue the previous example, let's say you have the consolidated mark sheet of each student or trainee accessible through different links. Instead of pasting the link by itself, you can use merge to link each mark sheet to the school logo or any other image in your document. That way, by clicking on the image, the student will be redirected to their personal mark sheet.

To learn more about merge field types, click here.


That's all for now. Let us know how you like these features in the comment section below or write to us at support@zohowriter.com.


 Happy writing!








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