My Love Affair with Stone Design's Create

I have been using Create for more than four years now, and if I could take only one application to a deserted island with me, it would be Create. I absolutely love this application. It’s my workbench. It’s open every day, all day. It does so many things and serves so many purposes, that I’m going to start keeping a list of all the ways I use it.

I love Create because it’s a big blank page that cries out for you to let your creative juices flow. You can put anything you want into Create and publish a website in a matter of minutes. Seriously. You aren’t locked into a theme where you have to put text in a certain spot and are required to have an image RIGHT HERE. I have created full websites with Create, and I use it frequently for additional web projects like event advertising and sign-up pages and HTML emails.

I also use Create for making printed newsletters, invitations, business cards, HTML emails, any kind of print job. I can even create a newsletter for print and then publish it to a website! And, the CSS automatically created in Create looks almost identical in Mac browsers and PC browsers. You can also add your own CSS to your Create file.

With the Stone applications, you get free updates for life. I have already paid more than $800 for Dreamweaver and its updates, $350 for Freeway and its updates, and I’m not going to bother paying for InDesign updates.

This will be a never-ending page, because I am always thinking of new ways to use Create.

Ways I Use Create

1 ... The obvious: newsletters, invitations, business cards, etc.

2 ... I print electronic mailing labels to a PDF file instead of to my printer, then drag the PDF files into Create and crop them so I can get two labels on one page.

3 ... I combine multiple PDF files into one new PDF file by dragging them into an open Create document with the number of blank pages I need. If a PDF file has more than one page and I don’t need them all, I open it in Create and then delete any page I don’t need. I can also do this in Preview, but if I'm already combining PDF files and Create is open, I might as well do it all right there in Create.

4 ... I NEVER fill out a form by hand. I scan all forms to a PDF file, then drag that file into Create and hold down option while I click the Text Tool, and I set about drawing text boxes and typing the info, drawing and typing, drawing and typing. By holding the option while you click on the Text Tool it lets you keep drawing new text blocks and typing without having to back to the Tool Bar. When I’m done filling in the form, I can either print, fax or email the form.

If it’s only a one page form, I can, without anything selected in the document, drag it out of the image well as a PDF file, and if I need the form again, e.g., my daughter’s soccer registration form that comes about every six months, I just double click the PDF file and it opens right up in Create, all set for me to update.

5 ... If I need to edit text in a PDF file that I didn’t create, I can open the file in Create and make a text block over the top of what needs editing, match the text style/size, fill the background with white or whatever color the document is and put in the correct text. I am just covering up what is underneath, but nobody knows the difference. You can swap out photos and images the same way. Basically you are using the original PDF file as your background.

6 ... If I need to sign a form, whether it’s a PDF form or a scanned form, I open it in Create and drag my scanned signature image to the appropriate place. Voila! It’s signed.

7 ... I put multiple photos together to make one image. I can lay them out in a montage, overlap them, style them anyway I want, and then drag the group of them out in one image. I don’t always want my photos to be shown in a single line or in a block of six.

8 ... I slice up photos using masking to move people closer together in a shot. I get a lot of photos of people introducing a speaker. The are both in the photo, but they are standing so far apart that you get a really nice shot of the blank wall behind them. I drag the photo into Create, duplicate it, then draw rectangles around each of the people, mask out the rest, then move the two people closer together, and drag out the new image.

9 ... I drag my photos into Create and add captions to them, then drag out the photo and caption as an image.

10 ... I make instruction files with screenshots from ImageWell or SnapNDrag, then annotate them with arrows, circles, and text in Create. I can then print these instructions to PDF files or to web pages. I can do this also in ImageWell, but there are more features in Create and I can easily make the document exactly as I want it or publish the file to the web or print it to a PDF file. I can also store my frequently used circles, squares, arrows, etc., in Create's Library Resources and drag them out whenever I need them.

11 ... I use Create as a pasteboard for images or clip art that I make/edit or get from other applications, things that I can't export directly from those applications. I can copy and paste them into Create, then drag them out as .jpg, .tiff, .eps, etc. For example, if I want a reflection on an image, I copy and paste the image into Pages or Numbers of Keynote, give it a reflection, then copy and paste it back into Create, where I can do more editing or just drag the image out to my hard drive. Yes, I can create a reflection on an image right in Create, but it's more steps and Apple makes it so simple that it's quicker to do it this way.

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