Preview Modes

You can preview what Templater’s layout engine will do to your dynamic layers by using the Preview feature. After mapping data to your composition layers and configuring their layout rules, you can either preview a new version of your composition one at a time or have Templater cycle through multiple versions of the composition automatically.

TIP We have recently changed our previewing method. View instructions for preview modes prior to Templater 2.9.0.

Manual Mode

With a manual preview, Templater retrieves data from your data source and updates all dynamic layers with that data. You can specify the range of data Templater should use when previewing. For example, if you want to quickly see what a series of words looked like for a particular text layer, use the the 3 and 4 icons to cycle between jobs in your range. You will see your dynamic layers update with data from consecutive rows in your spreadsheet or consecutive objects in a JSON array. You can also click the Refresh icon to force Templater to pull row data from a range’s start row, end row, or from a row in between.

NOTE  Templater re-reads your data source each time you preview and does not make use of caching.

TIP Make previewing faster by specifying a small range of rows or objects.

Cycle Mode

In cycle mode, Templater retrieves a range of data and cycles through each preview automatically, displaying layers with updated data and layout. Click the clock icon to begin cycling. While cycling through previews automatically, Templater uses the range that you specify in the Start and Finish fields in the transport section.

NOTE  Templater reads the data source only one time before it begins cycling previews. Updated or newly added data will not show up in a preview while Templater is in cycle preview mode.