Top Margins

[merc69]

Can anyone help and tell me how to make a Top Margin in webdesigner ? all my attempts leave the top edge completely stuck to the top of browsers ?? i can change the bottom and edges easily. Many Thanks Steve.

[gwpriester]

Welcome to TalkGraphics, Steve.

Hope you're still around. Your post got lost in the reshuffle here.

The simplest way is to place a rectangle the width of the page up top and give it the same color as the background. I did it on this site: www.placitasartglass.com/

There is another more labor intensive way to do this, and if you choose this method, I would make the page one you can duplicate for the rest of your site..

Apply a fill to the page. You can drag and drop a color from the screen palette onto the page (hold down the Ctrl key). You can also select a bitmap in the Bitmap Gallery and click Background to apply the bitmap as the page background.

Once this is done, open the Page and Layer Gallery (F10). Open the page folder and unlock the Page Background layer. Now the page background becomes a normal rectangle which you can adjust. So, select the page background and drag down the top of the page to create some space.

Lock the Page Background layer when you are finished.

Oops, forgot to mention this. And for this reason, the second method is probably better.

Xara automatically adds a page shadow to the page when you change the page background color or the pasteboard color. So, if you add a rectangle to the top of the page, it will look funny with part of the shadow covered or extending beyond your rectangle.

While the Page Background layer is unlocked, select the background rectangle, select the Shadow Tool, and set Shadow to none.

[Big Frank]

That's nicely explained Gary. I know, because I've done both myself and have found it to be as convoluted as you just explained it!

[steve.ledger]

Can anyone help and tell me how to make a Top Margin in webdesigner ? all my attempts leave the top edge completely stuck to the top of browsers ?? i can change the bottom and edges easily. Many Thanks Steve.

Xara have provided an easy method for creating a top page margin.
After setting a page or pasteboard bg, simply enable Rulers (Ctrl+L) and drag the intersection point to a point above your page to define the space you require.



If you are creating a multi-page website, do this step before you add new pages.

Open the page folder and unlock the Page Background layer. Now the page background becomes a normal rectangle which you can adjust. So, select the page background and drag down the top of the page to create some space.

This method doesn't account for the page clipping area and will reduce the page length by the amount you have dragged the unlocked page area downwards from the top.

[Albacore]

Gee Steve thanks for that simple advice! Don't like scrolling down a page so giving your site a clean look at the top may put others off.

[steve.ledger]

Which 'Steve' are you responding to Peter?

...either way - "say what?"

[PeteS]

I have put together a small file that shows a work around for this, it's similar to what Gary posted.


For this guide to be most successful it helps if you have not changed the origin position on the first page already as above posts suggest. If you have please reset it to remove the margin that had been created.

This needs to be done for each page:
1. Go to Utilities -> Options -> Page Size tab and increase the height by your required top margin size. I want a 20px top margin, my page is 800px by 600px. So change height to 620px, click Apply and OK.

2. Open the Page & Layer Gallery and go to the page you are working on and unlock the Page backgroud layer.

3. Select the page background rectangle and change the height (H) property for it from 620px to 600px

4. Change the Y property to 20px.

5. Lock the Page background layer in Page & Layer Gallery

6. Make all layers visible on the page and press Ctrl + A to Select All. (If you have any repeating objects/site nav bars etc then please jump to step XXXXXXX)

7. With all objects selected increase the Y property by 20px. So if it's currently 19px change it to 39px. Provided you increase the units by the same quantity as you have increased the page size and moved the page background, this will restore all of the objects on the page to the same page position (in relation to the page background) they were before any changes were made.


If you have repeating objects on the page you will find that if you follow the above exactly it will keep moving the repeating objects down the page when you edit the next page.

The solution to this is to carry out the above steps for the first page, then for subsequent pages press Ctrl + A to Select All objects on the page (step 6) but then hold down the Shift key and de-select any repeating objects (nav bars/menus/buttons/logos etc) then increase the Y unit by your required margin size.