Setting the attributes of an Action

The attributes you can set depend on the selected Action. Some Actions do not require any attributes; for others you should enter the preferred values, for example a length or a version number, pick a color, select an option from a list, select a checkbox, ... Setting the attributes is in most cases quite obvious.

Note: If an attribute of an Action requires a unit, for example a length, the unit specified in the PitStop Pro Preferences (Units & Guides Category) is used. For example, if you're using the Select size Action, you have to determine minimum or maximum width or the height of the objects you want to select. If you have selected "cm" in the PitStop Pro Preferences, you will have to specify a value in "cm".

This topic explains the "special cases":

How to use variables instead of fixed values.
How to use regular expressions
How to log "check" Actions
How to use the Use page rotation (and scaling factor) checkbox (which is available in a number of Actions)

To use variables instead of fixed values:
1. Click the Actions link and select Enable Variable Names.
2. Click .
3. Select the variable you want to use.
4. Repeat steps b-c for each variable you want to use.
5. Click OK.
You must have defined a Variable Set. For more information, refer to the chapter about Smart Preflight and the topic Creating a Variable set in the PitStop Pro Reference Guide.
To use regular expressions instead of fixed strings:
1. Enable the Use regular expressions checkbox.
2. Create rules using regular expressions. The most commonly used symbols can be used.
  
  Regular expressions provide a way to find patterns within a text. This is useful in many contexts, for example to check whether a piece of text meets certain criteria, or to find and/or replace strings with a particular pattern. In PitStop Pro, regular expressions are used to configure the attributes of certain Actions (but only available in combination with equal/not equal operators). For an overview of the Actions concerned, refer to the Action manual on the Enfocus website.
  
  PitStop supports Boost Regular Expressions. For more information, refer to http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_47_0/libs/regex/doc/html/boost_regex/synt ax/perl_syntax.html.
Examples:
Rename spot color is an Action that allows you to change the name of spot colors in a document.
- To rename variants of the same color, e.g. to rename “Varnish0”, “Varnish1”, “Varnish23” (i.e. "Varnish" followed by one or more digits) to “Varnish” (without any digits), you could create a rule that renames "Varnish([0-9])+" to "Varnish".
- To replace "Pantone" (regardless of the case) with "Separation" in all spot color names used in your document, create the following rule:
This rule will allow you to rename "Pantone 0123 U" to "Separation 0123 U", "PANTONE 9324 U" to "Separation 9324 U", ...
In case of Actions of the type "Check", you should determine if and how the result of the Action should be logged (in the Enfocus Navigator and in the Report).
- Don't Log: Nothing will be logged.
- Log as warning: If the check is positive, it will be logged as a warning (). This allows you distinguish between severe and less severe issues.
- Log as error and allow Sign-Off (): If the check is positive, it will be logged as an error that can be "signed-off", i.e. can be "approved" or evaluated as a minor error which doesn't fail PDF certification. This is only relevant if you're running Actions in the context of Certified PDF.
- Log as error(): If the check is positive, it will be logged as an error. If you're running Actions in the context of Certified PDF, this kind of problems will prevent the file from being certified OK. The problem must be fixed, before the file can be certified.
If the Action you're configuring has the Use page rotation or the Use page rotation and scaling factor checkbox:
- To take into account page rotation and/or scaling factor, select this checkbox. The Action will be applied to the actual position of the page content.
- To ignore page rotation and/or scaling factor, clear this checkbox. The Action will be applied to the original position of the page content (i.e. BEFORE applying page rotation and/or scaling factor).