Digital Paper
Generator Instructions

This page is a work in progress. Somethings may change after I am done building the designer.

For some reason, printing to PDF or saving to PDF does not seem to be working in the latest version of Chrome. It ends up being blank. The latest version of Microsoft Edge seems to be working fine for printing to PDF or saving to PDF.

In October 2019, I moved the site to a new server so you will find things are working differently now. Below are the new features you will find in this new paper bead sheet generator.

Features
• New Look and feel. Designed to look and work good no matter what device you are on.
• Simpler interface, more intuitive, more like an app.
• Page automatically updates with each change you make to your design.
• Shows small scaled down version of actual size so you can actually see the sheet in whole.
• You can choose to print on any size of paper.
• You can print your bead sheet directly to paper or Save to a PDF File for future use.
• You can choose from 15 sizes of image.
• You can choose from 17 layouts.
• You can choose color of backgrounds, any color!
• Layouts are pre set with how many images and colors you can choose.
• Focus is on the sheet and not the finished beads.
• Cutting lines are not needed.

When your digital paper prints to this window, you will a scaled down version of your design. When you do click on that "Print Bead Sheet" button, your printer's dialog box will pop up and should give you a preview of what your, full size, page will look like when printed. Of course you don't have to print out the page then but you can use it to make sure your page will print the way you want it to. You can refer to the Printer Settings below to adjust your settings that you need to, to get the printed results you want.

Uploading Images

You can upload your own images if there isn't one you want to use on our site. Just make sure to upload it before starting to make your masterpiece.

1. There is no need for large images in this program. Make sure to get your images ready before uploading.
2. You can upload images up to 50kb in size. That is about 200 x 200 in pixels, give or take a few pixels. That would be an image that is no more then 2" x 2" set at 96px per inch or ppi. When printing bead sheets or graph paper, there is no need for a high resolution photo in this program. It is just a waste of ink and the ink could run if too much is used.
3. The pixel resolution should be no more than 94ppi.
4. The images you upload will be added to the images folder along with all of the other images. Give your file name a unique all lowercase name and perhaps a weird series of 5 or more gibberish lowercase letters, to keep the name unique so it won't be rejected for having a duplicate name.
5. Right now there is no search function for the images so file names don't mean anything but they are sorted in alphabetical order so use a first word that describes what the image is related to such as christmas, holiday, flowers etc...

Printer Settings

1. Set your printer to print portrait or landscape.
2. Set your 4 margins to none or zero depending on what your printer offers you for margin settings.
3. Set your printer to print borderless, as if you are printing photos, and choose photo papers or cardstock. Fake out your printer if you have to, to make this work. I always tell my HP printer that I am printing on HP Photo papers even though I am using copy paper. Otherwise, it won't let me print my digital paper.
4. Make sure you tell your printer to print background graphics and colors. This is how this page designer works.

NOTE: If you are not getting the image results you are expecting and your image seems to be full size no matter what, it may be that your browser does not support resizing of background images.

Saving your Digital Paper To PDF

The way I do it, is I Save it to PDF instead of actually printing it on paper. That way, I can print it from the pdf file when ever I want. Follow the steps below to save your digital paper to a PDF File.

1. Make sure you are working with the latest version of the browser you are using.
2. Your page updates automatically as you are making changes but you may need to click on the Update button when you are satisfied with your design. After that, you can print your page!
3. Click on the Print button when you are done designing your masterpiece.
4. In your print dialog, Set your margins and paper size.
5. Make sure your print background colors and images is checked.
6. Choose "Save as PDF", your bead sheet will be saved as a pdf file and you can open it in your pdf reader later. Give it a name you will remember.
7. Save it in a place where you can open it later. Once I save it to PDF, I can open it up with either Adobe Acrobat or CutePDF.
8. When finally printing your bead sheet to paper, I like to print at 150 or 300 dpi at the most. Any higher than that and you will be wasting Ink and your ink may run when you glaze your beads or do anything with your paper that involves glazing.