8.1.4. Step and Repeats
An extremely powerful and flexible module built-in to the Design client is its so called step&repeats function. Users can utilise this feature to create seamless and repeating patterns of any dimensions easily and quickly. Jobs created are then processed and printed very efficiently without any delay to any size required. We will now cover the operation of this feature in the Design client.
Start by first selecting the pattern file required as shown above.
Once selected click on the 'col x row' to tick and select this option. You can now enter the number of repeats in horizontal and vertical.
It is also possible to enter the actual width and length of the overall design rather than the repeats number. To do this click on the repeat icon to change it to the size icon and now enter the dimensions.
Next we can adjust and change a number of parameters to achieve desire design and layout. These parameters are located in the Options tab under the Step and Repeat section.
First step is to enable this feature. We can also switch off the Grid-Lines so that we can view the resulting pattern more clearly.
The Shift parameters enables users to achieve the desired look. In the example below we apply a 25% vertical shift.
The complete pattern can be moved in X and Y by using the Offset values.
Finally the Flip parameter can be used to achieve more pattern designs.
Once finished with the design click on the Submit button to send the job to the printer queue. The job will now be listed on the Server queue with an icon indicating that it's a pattern job.
Please note that pattern jobs can not be nested or grouped with other jobs.