Using the Design Checker in Publisher

The Design Checker reviews your publication for a variety of design and layout problems. It identifies potential problems and provides options to fix them.

Important: Be sure to run the Design Checker before you publish a publication on a desktop printer, pack it to go to a commercial printer, send it in email, publish it to the web, or after you convert one type of publication to another type.

You can specify the types of problems that the Design Checker looks for in the Design Checker Options dialog box. For example, if you are preparing a publication for printing at a commercial printing service and you want to use more than two spot colors in your publication, open the Design Checker Options dialog box, click the Checks tab, and then clear the More than two spot colors option so that it will not check for more than two spot colors in your publication.

Design Checker task pane

When you open the Design Checker task pane, it dynamically updates the list of problems as they occur or as you fix them.

Run general design checks     Select this option to check for design problems, such as empty text boxes, that may adversely impact your publication.

Run commercial printing checks     Select this option to check for problems, such as pictures in RGB mode, that may adversely impact printing your publication at a commercial printing business.

Run web site checks      Select this option to check for problems, such as pictures without alternative text, that may adversely impact your Web site publication.

Run e-mail checks (current page only)     Select this option to check for problems, such as text that contains a hyphenation, which may cause gaps in the message when it is viewed in certain e-mail viewers.

Select an item to fix     The Design Checker task pane lists problems in the publication. Each problem includes a description and located. Most problems occur on a specific page. However, some affect the entire publication. Click a problem to switch to the page and object with the problem. Click the arrow to the right of the problem to see other options such as how to fix the problem if an automatic fix is available, ignore the problem, or to get help with it.

Close Design Checker     Click this button to stop the Design Checker and close the task pane. When you close the Design Checker, it won't run in the background until you start it again.

Design Checker Options     Click this link to open the Design Checker Options dialog box, where you can set display options for the problems listed in the Design Checker task pane. You can also select a page range to check, or you can select specific checks.

Design Checker Options dialog box

Use the settings in the Design Checker Options dialog box to change how the Design Checker task pane displays problems in the publication and determines which problems to display.

General tab

Select options that affect how the Design Checker task pane displays the problems it finds, and then set which pages the Design Checker will check.

Display Options

Sort by     Select one of the following options:

• Page number     Sorts problems by the page number where they occur.

• Description     Sorts problems alphabetically by their description. When problems are listed by description, you can see all problems of the same type grouped together.

• Status     Sorts problems by status. The Design Checker will list problems by page number, starting with problems that have not been fixed, and then by problems that have been fixed.

  Note: To use this option, it's best to first clear the Remove fixed items check box.

Remove fixed items     Select this option to remove problems from the list of items after they are fixed. The Design Checker updates the list automatically whenever you make a change.

Page Range

Select a page range that you want the Design Checker to check.

• All     Checks all pages in the publication.

• Check master page(s)     Includes all master pages when you select All as the page range.

• Current page(s)     Checks only the current page(s).

Checks tab

Select the check boxes for the checks that you want the Design Checker to run.

In the Show list, the following groups of checks are available:

• All checks Includes all the categories.

• General checks Includes checks relevant to creating publications and aren't specific to commercial, web or emailed publications.

• Commercial printing checks Includes checks relevant to the commercial printing process.

• Web site checks Includes checks relevant to creating web sites.

• E-mail checks Includes checks relevant to creating email messages.

General checks

Check	Action performed
Object encroaches nonprintable region	Warns you when an object is in the nonprintable region of most desktop printers.
Object partially off page	Warns you when an object won't fully print because it isn't completely on the page. If you're creating a bleed, this could be intentional, but it's usually not.
Object isn't visible	Looks for objects that can't be seen on a page (possibly because the object is covered by another object, or has blended into an object of the same color).
Object doesn't have a line or fill/Text box is empty	Looks for objects without opaque attributes. The object may be an AutoShape with no line or fill, or it may be a text box with no text.
Object has transparency	Looks for objects with a transparent color applied to them. Objects with transparent colors print unpredictably to PostScript and PCL printers. Tip:  Saving to PDF or XPS or printing to an XPS enhanced printer is best when using transparent objects.
Page has space below top margin	Looks for pages where no object touches or is above the top margin.
Low-resolution picture	Looks for pictures with an effective resolution of less than 96 dots per inch (dpi). This check assumes you're printing to a high-resolution printer or imagesetter that requires high-resolution pictures for best printing results. An effective resolution of at least 96dpi is also recommended for PDF and XPS (because 96dpi is the most common monitor resolution).
Picture is missing	Looks for instances where a picture is a linked picture and the external linked file is missing or moved, which breaks the link.
Picture is modified	Looks for any linked picture that hasn't been updated after the picture on the hard drive or network was modified in an image-editing program.
Picture isn't scaled proportionally	Looks for pictures where one dimension has been resized more than the other.
Story with text in overflow area	Looks for any text box or AutoShape containing part of a story that isn't visible because it's in overflow.
Story on scratch area	Looks for instances of a linked text box or AutoShape containing part of a story on the scratch area.
Text has transparent colors	Looks for text with transparent colors applied. Text with transparent colors print unpredictably to PostScript and PCL printers. Tip:  Saving to PDF or XPS, or printing to an XPS enhanced printer is best when transparent objects are used.
Text has transparent effects	Looks for text with transparent effects applied. Text with transparent effects print unpredictably to PostScript and PCL printers. Tip:  Saving to PDF or XPS, or printing to an XPS enhanced printer is best when transparent objects are used.

Commercial printing checks

Check	Action performed
More than two spot colors	Looks for the use of more than two spot colors in a publication is set up to print spot-color or process-color and spot-color.
Unused spot colors	Looks for instances where you've added a spot-color ink to your ink list, but it hasn't been used in the publication. This check runs if you've set up your publication's Color Model to spot-colors or to process-color plus spot-color.
Publication is in RGB mode	Looks for instances where your publication is set to print in RGB colors but other options indicate that you plan to print the publication through a commercial printing service.
Object has transparency	Looks for objects with a transparent color applied to them. Objects with transparent colors print unpredictably to PostScript and PCL printers. Tip:  Saving to PDF or XPS, or printing to an XPS enhanced printer is best when transparent objects are used.
Low-resolution picture	Looks for pictures with an effective resolution of less than 96 dots per inch (dpi). This check assumes you're printing to a high-resolution printer or imagesetter that requires high-resolution pictures for best printing results.
Picture is missing	Looks for instances where a picture is a linked picture and the external linked file is missing or moved, which breaks the link.
Story with text in overflow area	Looks for any text box or AutoShape containing part of a story that isn't visible because it's in overflow.
Story on scratch area	Looks for instances where a linked text box or AutoShape containing part of a story is on the scratch area.
Text has transparent colors	Looks for text with transparent colors applied. Text with transparent colors print unpredictably to PostScript and PCL printers. Tip:  Saving to PDF or XPS, or printing to an XPS enhanced printer is best when transparent objects are used.
Text has transparent effects	Looks for text with transparent effects applied. Text with transparent effects print unpredictably to PostScript and PCL printers. Tip:  Saving to PDF or XPS, or printing to an XPS enhanced printer is best when transparent objects are used.

Website checks

Check	Action performed
Picture doesn't have alternative text	Looks for pictures without alternative text.
Page can't be reached from first page	Looks for pages that can't be reached by any combination of links that begins from a link on the first or home page of the website.
Page doesn't have links	Looks for pages that don't have a link to leave the page.

Email checks

Check	Action performed
Object with text is partially off the page	Looks for any object containing text partially off a publication page.
HTML fragment is partially off the page	Looks for any HTML code fragment partially off the page.
Object is overlapping text	Looks for any object on top of a text box.
Object with text is rotated	Looks for any object containing text and has been rotated.
Shape with text has a hyperlink on the shape	Looks for any shape with a hyperlink on top of it.
Text is vertical	Looks for any text box that containing vertically rotated text.
Text is too big to fit in the frame	Looks for any text box with text that's too big.
Text is in a non-web-ready font	Looks for text not formatted in a web-safe font.
Text is in a diagonal table cell	Looks for text located in a diagonal table cell.
Table borders are less than .75pt	Looks for instances of a table with borders less than .75 point thick.
Text has hyphenation	Looks for any hyphens in the text.
Text box with borders has zero margins	Looks for any text box with a margin set to zero.
Hyperlink links to another page in this document	Looks for instances of a hyperlink on one Web page that links to another page in the same publication.