Cropping and resizing an image in Content Station 9

Info: This feature requires Enterprise Server 10.1 or higher and Content Station 9.8.6 or higher.

When using an image in an article for print or for publishing on the Internet, the original image often needs to be cropped and/or resized. On top of that, the size of the image that is used on the Internet is usually much smaller than the same image that is used in print.

Using Content Station, each image that is used in a Publish Form or in an article as an inline image can be individually cropped and resized, without affecting the original image.

The cropping tools

The cropping tools can be accessed in the following ways:

• For inline images: select the image and click the Crop icon in the lower left corner.

• For images in a single file field of a Publish Form: click the Crop button.

• For images in a multi-file field of a Publish Form: hover over the image and click the Crop icon in the lower left corner.

The Cropping tools appear in a separate window:

Using the Cropping tools, you can perform an unconstrained crop or crop an image to a custom size.

Performing an unconstrained crop

This method can be seen as a regular crop where you simply adjust the crop area so that it covers the part of the image that you want to retain. The size of the image is adjusted to whatever the size of the crop area is.

This method is typically used for images that are published to print.

Step 1. Make sure that the Unconstrained crop mode is active by clicking the Unconstrained button.

Step 2. (Optional) Choose a proportion from the Proportion list.

Step 3. Adjust the Crop Area by moving and/or resizing it.

Step 4. Click Save.

The crop settings are saved and the preview of the image is updated. Note that the crop will only be applied to the image that is published. The original image is not affected and you can at any time open the Cropping window for the image to adjust or remove the crop.

In the following example, an image with an original size of 3800x2400 pixels is cropped by resizing and repositioning the Crop Area. After cropping, the image size is 1640 by 1640 pixels, as shown in the Crop Size fields.

Cropping an image to a custom size

Cropping an image to a custom size is typically used when you know beforehand that the image should be of a certain size.

It works by setting the crop area to a custom size and then adjusting the crop area so that it covers the part of the image that you want to retain.

Example: Cropping an image to exactly 100x100 pixels for publishing to the Internet.

Step 1. Make sure that the Unconstrained crop mode is active by clicking the Unconstrained button.

Step 2. (Optional) Choose a proportion from the Proportion list.

Step 3. Set the Crop Size in the Crop Size (pixels) fields.

Step 4. Switch to the Custom crop mode by clicking the Custom button.

The Proportion list and the Crop Size fields become unavailable.

Step 5. Adjust the Crop Area by moving and/or resizing it.

Step 6. Click Save.

The crop settings are saved and the preview of the image is updated. Note that the crop will only be applied to the image that is published. The original image is not affected and you can at any time open the Cropping window for the image to adjust or remove the crop.

In the following example, an image with an original size of 3800x2400 pixels is cropped to a size of exactly 200 by 200 pixels, as shown in the Crop Size fields.

Troubleshooting

When trying to crop an image, the following error can appear:

This image cannot be cropped because image information such as width, height or DPI is not available in Enterprise Server.

Try checking-out the image and checking it back in again to generate this information.

If that fails, contact your system administrator.

For information about checking-out files, see Opening, saving and closing files with Content Station 9 AIR.

Note for system administrators: Make sure that the ExifTool is installed and enabled. See Enterprise Server 10 full installation.