Now that we’ve looked at the basics of the brochure builder and modifying a template, we’re going to create a new template from scratch.
We'll be instructing you in the basics of a new brochure as a running instructional tutorial below. If you wish to watch this process, please see our Rex University video training centre.
To do this – just click on the '+' symbol in the top left.
Give it a name, and I’ll just leave all the other settings as default, and then hit 'add'.
We’re then presented with choosing our sample Listing – so just put in a Listing and click 'select'.
For starters, we’ll add in a Listing image. You’ll see here we have all the images that would be on the Listing right through to floor plan and also Listing Agent. I’m just going to choose 'image 1'.
You may have to drag it out, but if you don’t get it perfect – that’s okay, you can resize it. As I explained in the previous video, you can change the Listing image. You can do this by heading to the top to 'change listing image', and change to a different image.
Let’s look at adding in some text content from our Listing. Let’s add in the address for starters. If you click on 'text pre-sets', you can see different pre-sets from the Listings that would be there. For starters, I’m going to find the address and just drag that out - you can move it to a different spot.
Now we’ll add in the add text content, so back to 'pre-sets'. Select the ad text, and then drag it out.
Just select 'edit text', at the top and as I explained earlier in the video – it's a merge tag. So this is what it will look like if we didn’t have the example Listing. If you highlight the text - and I’m just going to change the size and make it smaller – and hit 'save', you can see that it has changed the text and made it a smaller font.
I’m going to go back to the 'ad pre-sets' and choose the heading – you can drag it out where you want it.
What you’ll find is that if you have two separate boxes here. If the heading was much longer it would move down a line, and that would in turn break the design and maybe come over the top of the text there, which we don’t want. What I may want to do here is actually add the heading into the below text box, so that you have the one text box. If you just choose the text box you want – go to 'edit text' and move the text down one line, come back up to the top and choose 'insert merge tag'.
The category I’m going to use is 'listing advert'. I'll choose the 'long ad heading' merge tag and hit 'insert'. I’ll make the heading a bit bigger and bold, and then hit 'save'. This will move the heading into the below text box so you can get rid of the heading above.
You can also use HTML to add custom modifications to the text. I’m going to choose the ad text and select 'edit text'. This is what the text will look like but what it's built on is HTML - so if you click on the HTML tab, you’ll see what the text actually looks like.
I’m going to add a tab that'll give me some line spacing into the ‘p’ tag, which is a paragraph tag, and hit 'save'. You’ll see here that I’ve now got spacing of 1.5 in my text.
I’m now going to add in my key attributes, then click and drag where you want.
My default is going to be horizontal, however I want to make it vertical. So while it’s selected, head to 'edit layout' and I’m going to change it from 'horizontal stack’ to 'vertical', and I’m also going to change the spacing of the icons to 2. The icons are still quite big so I’ll just make them a bit smaller to 25x25 and hit 'save'.
Let’s now look at adding in the price of our Listing too. Head to 'text pre-sets', 'price', and just drag it out. We’re going to add in a colour block across that middle section there. Go to the rectangle tool, and just click and drag where you want it.
You’ll notice that it'll go over the top of the text – but like we covered in the video before that's because now this is the top layer, so we need to move it back a section. I’m also going to change the text to be White so that it stands out.
In the brochure builder, you can't add in shapes other than a rectangle. You can, however, upload an image that's a different shape which has a transparent background. Just go to 'upload image' and drag out where you want it to be.
Choose 'upload image', (the image is a .png with a transparent background). Select the image, hit 'open', and 'save'. You can then see it has got a fill on the background.
I’m going to remove that by heading here and change it to 'no background'. I’ll just change my rectangle now to have a Black fill colour.
I’m going to add in the Agent details now. Head over to 'text pre-sets' and down to 'Agent name', and drag it out.
You can also do the Agent phone number, Agent email address etc. If you head to 'text pre-sets', you’ll see those here. What I want to do is add it to the same text box like I did with the Listing ad – this way, if the name or email address is long it’s not going to break my design.
You’ll need to select the 'edit text' box. I’m now just going to drop down a line and add in the merge tags for 'agent details', and 'email address'. Down on the next line I’m going to add the same details but for phone number.
I’m going to make it all the same size by selecting all of the text, selecting the size and hitting 'save'. You can see there's quite a bit of space between the text here, which I don’t really want. When you press 'return' or 'enter' on your keyboard, it'll actually create a new paragraph – when all you need to do is create a line break.
If you go back to 'edit text', I’m going to remove the spacing and hold down 'SHIFT' and press 'ENTER' (if you’re using a Mac), and you can see there it’s just pushed it down one line. Now hit 'save'.
It’s made it much more tidy. I’m going to add in another line to break up the bottom and add in the Agency details. Over to the 'text pre-sets'again, add in 'agency name' and drag it out. I could go back to pre-sets and add in the phone, address etc. but I’m just going to add it into the same text box like I did before.
Add in the Agency address, make it the same size and 'save'.
I’m also going to add in the logo. It’s the same as the Listing image – just click and drag.
Now that we’ve created our brochure template, let’s have a look at it as a whole. If you just head to 'preview changes', in the Blue button up the top. You can see this is what it'll look like when it’s printed off in a PDF.
I can see there is a little gap with the middle strip – so I can go back and fix that up by clicking 'close preview', and just resize the image so that it comes right out to the edge. Hit 'preview' again and it's now fixed that gap. Close the preview, hit the Red 'save' button up the top – the brochure has now been saved and is ready to be loaded from any Listing.