http://www.belightsoft.com/swiftpublisher/ Start of Help > Program Settings

The Preferences Dialog

Some settings in Swift Publisher are used by default every time you run the application. By changing them in the Preferences dialog you can control the behavior of the program. To open the Preferences dialog, choose the Swift Publisher > Preferences menu item or press Cmd-",".

General Settings

Open on start-up - controls what to open when you start the program:

Default Zoom defines a zoom value used for all new documents.
The option also affects the Swift Publisher main window size indirectly. At large zoom values, the main window takes almost all vertical space of the screen. At smaller values of Default Zoom, the main window may not be extended from the top of the screen to the bottom.

The templates in the Assistant exist for US and metric paper size standards.
The Default Format for Designs in Assistant option controls which format to use. The program must be restarted for the changes to enter in force.


Measurement Units can be set to Inches, Centimeters, Millimeters and Points. The units are used to display coordinates and dimensions of objects.

The program looks for content such as image collections and masks using the following default path:
/Library/Application Support/BeLight Software
or an alternative path selected in Preferences.

Several copies of Swift Publisher can be installed on network computers. To save disk space, one computer can share images with others. For this, you need to set up a new path to the content:

  1. Tick the Get content from checkbox.

  2. Click the Browse button and select the BeLight Software folder with content on a network computer (according to the default path). You can type in the path manually.
    Note: The selected folder must contain BeLight's folders such as ClipArt and Masks.

  3. Restart Swift Publisher to have the content loaded from the new location.

To load the program content from the default location, deselect the Get content from checkbox.

Note: using shared images via local network can slow down some operations with images and the Clipart panel.

Design Settings

Snap - enables or disables the Snap mode. When this mode is on, objects being carried with the mouse stick to other objects for accurate alignment. You can also temporarily disable the Snap mode if you press and hold the Cmd key when you move an object.

Show foreground objects when editing background - enables or disables the functionality. Enable this option to see objects on both layers of the page when you work with a background object.

The Color of Guidelines option lets you set color for guidelines so that they are better visible on the page with colored background or images.

The Font option sets the default font. This font will be used when you type some text into a new text box.


Printing Settings

Swift Publisher has advanced printing settings. If you do not need to change them every time you print,
select Option to skip dialog with advanced printing settings.


Print Quality lets you set resolution for raster images. This value is used for printing and does not affect the quality of images in your design.

For faster printing, decrease this parameter. For high quality printing, set this value higher. The default value of 300 dpi is enough for most cases.