Let's make a stop on our tour of RZ Designer

This tour is a series of articles. We hope you complete the tour to the end so you don't miss anything. Let us begin...

RZ Designer's user interface is fairly simple as compared to other similar tools. Maybe not the simplest but definitely not the most complicated. At the top you have some buttons. On the right sidebar are some properties that are relevant to whatever element you may have currently selected. In the middle is a big canvas where your creation exists.  Let us start with the toolbar.

Top toolbar

Across the top of the editor is a toolbar with some buttons. The buttons in the far-right side are buttons specific to the right sidebar properties. The buttons in the toolbar may be different depending what type of design you are working with. Here is a brief explanation of the buttons as they appear from left to right...

• Desktop, Table, Mobile Phone - these buttons appear when working on a Blast or Web Page. Each button changes the size of the canvas to simulate the display of your design on such a device.
• Preview PDF - appears when working on a PDF Flyer. When you click on this button, a PDF Document of your design will be generated and will display in a new browser tab. Be patient as this may take few moments to complete. Depending on your web browser, it may display the PDF in a new tab, or it may kick off a download of the PDF file onto your device.
• Preview Image - appears when working a PDF Flyer. When you click on this button, a image file of your design will be generated and will display in a new browser tab. The image is typically quite large in dimensions and of pretty good resolution and is intended that you will download it and make use of it as you wish. There are a lot of possibilities for what you can do with the image.   
• Undo and Redo - these buttons give you the ability undo and redo the changes that have recently been done in the design canvas. 
• Preview on/off - click this button to toggle on/off a true WYSIWYG display of your design. In this mode the design cannot be tweaked. You cannot select elements. The properties sidebar is visible and functional, but you will not see the result of any changes until you toggle the preview mode. Think of preview as a read-only display of the design.
• Helpers on/off - When not in preview mode, the canvas is... well your canvas. You can select elements, drag elements, edit content of elements, and much more. When helpers is toggled ON, dotted outlines, invisible elements and more appear, all of which are intended to help you visualize, select and tweak the design. When helpers is toggled OFF, your design may appear closer to WYSIWYG but it becomes more difficult to select and tweak individual elements because they may collapse and/or obscure each other.
• Absolute positioning on/off - This button only appears when working on a PDF Flyer or Web Page. When this button is toggled OFF (default), any elements you drag around will only allow you to drop in places like above, below, beside. This is the normal behavior for most designs. However, when toggled ON, any object you select and drag around to position will allow you to drop it just about anywhere. This is a pretty powerful, but it will take some practice to get the hang of it. On a Web Page, absolute positioning is risky because Web pages are responsive and morph when viewed on various devices e.g. mobile phone. Absolute positioning can result in elements rendering off screen (that is a bad thing).
• Export - Will pop up a dialog that displays one or more formats of your design's code, each format intended for a specific purpose.
• Import - Will pop up a dialog where you can paste in code. Note that import will replace the entire content of your design. 
• Trash it! - Will erase the canvas and start over. Use it with caution. Need we say any more?