This tutorial is designed to cover and walk you through the fundamentals of sticker design with DeskLot in the shortest time possible. The tutorial takes the average person about 5 minutes to complete and can easily save you 10 times that amount of time.

To begin editing existing sticker designs (or to create a new one), click the "Window Stickers" menu option from within DeskLot and then "Configure Window Stickers".

You will then be presented with the "Stickers" selection screen.

To edit or view an existing sticker configuration, select a configuration to work with from the dropdown list (shown above) and then click the "Select" button. To create a new/blank sticker configuration, click the "New" button. We suggest finding a sticker configuration you want to modify, selecting it from the list, and then using the "Copy" function to copy it to a new name which will let you keep the original in case you make a mistake or ever wish to resort back to it.

To practice making a copy of a sticker so that you may safely modify it without risking losing the initial good configuration, select "SAMPLE: Sample 2, Joe Sample of Dallas" from the list and then click the "Copy" button. A dialog box will pop up asking you for a new name for the copy of the configuration. Name it "My Test" and then click "OK" to make the copy. 

For the rest of this getting started document we will be starting with a totally new blank sticker design. 

Click "New" from the "Stickers" selection screen (shown above). A dialog box will popup asking you to name the new sticker. Call it "My New Sticker". Now from the "Stickers" selection screen use the dropdown list to find and select the configuration named "My New Sticker" and then click "Select". This will open the sticker design stage (shown below).

The most important part of the sticker design process is placing different element types onto the "Preview Stage" (the blank white section taking up the majority of the left half of the screen shown above). This Preview Stage is basically just a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) representation of the piece of paper you will be printing on. It shows the actual size of the paper (less the printer margins... i.e. a 1/4" or so that is not printable area as defined by your printer driver... the printer margins).

If you want to select a different paper size, say for example you are going to print on 8 1/2" x 14" paper, select "File" and then "Print Setup" from the menu at the top of the screen, which will popup a print properties menu where you can select a different paper size.

If you want to print to a custom user defined paper size such as 17" x 11", you may define a custom paper size via the "Settings" screen which is available via the main menu option "File" and then "Settings" (if you already have the Sticker Configuration screen open, you will have to close it and then re-open it for the custom paper size to show up in the list). After changing the paper size, printer, or other "Print Properties", The "Preview Stage" will then be updated with the height/width of the newly selected paper size or printer settings.

Another useful feature which is often overlooked is the "Grid" option which is also available by selecting "View" and then "Grid" from the menu at the top of the screen. By selecting this option, a dot (pixel) is displayed every 10 pixels on the screen as well as on the printout printed from this screen (along with a ruler) which is useful for getting more exact position settings for various sticker elements. For example, when we are designing stickers to print data on pre-printed forms, we will print the grid to a blank piece of paper, manually lay that paper over the pre-printed form and therefore know more exactly what numeric position values to type in for various sticker elements such as where to print the Year, Make or Model.

Placing elements on the stage (sticker design preview) is done by clicking on one of the "Elements" on the "Toolbox" (shown at the right) and then clicking the location on the stage where you want to place the element.

Notice that as you do this, the text of the top of the border around the preview stage that says "Preview Stage" also reveals the mouse's X and Y coordinates (such as "Preview Stage (X Position 125 / Y Position 25)"), so, if you are using a printout of the grid (as mentioned above) to layout elements, this, in combination with the Preview Stage showing you X and Y coordinates of the mouse can help you get darn close when dropping elements onto the stage.

Concerning the "Toolbox", if you ever need to know what an icon does, simply move your mouse pointer over it and leave it there for a moment. A "Help Tip" will be displayed.

For this example, let's place a "Vehicle Field" onto the "Preview Stage". Click the "Vehicle Field Element" icon so that it is the depressed icon. Now move your mouse pointer over the "Preview Stage". You will notice the mouse pointer turns to a cross hair. Place the center of the cross hair where you want the upper left of the vehicle field value to be displayed and then click your left mouse button ONCE (you do not have to be exact... you can tweak the position later). 

You will now notice some sample data displayed on your "Preview Stage". The vehicle field by default is the Stock Number (we will show you how to change it to what you want later). When designing a sticker, DeskLot always displays sample data from the 1st vehicle record (the one with the smallest ID number) in your database so in this case, the Stock Number for your 1st vehicle record (assuming you have records with data in them) is displayed on the "Preview Stage" (as shown to the right).

You will also notice that the "Select a Current Element to Modify" box (shown to the left) now has one entry in it (Vehicle Field Data 1).

Next we will select a different vehicle field to display here. We'll make DeskLot display the "Make" (i.e. Ford, Mazda, etc) for this element as opposed to the Stock Number.

From the "Select a Current Element to Modify" section click on the "Element" named "Vehicle Field Data 1" (the only one that exists in the list at this point).

Once you select an Element from the list, DeskLot will enable various properties in the "Set Selected Element Properties" section (shown below to the left) which you may set for the element. In this case, the 1st thing we want to do is use the dropdown list entitled "Vehicle Field" (which currently displays Stock Number as the selected value) and we want to select "Make".

Once you select "Make" (or change any other "Element Property" for that matter), nothing happened... nothing changed. That is because DeskLot only updates the "Preview Stage" once you click off of a setting into another one. This is to increase performance in limiting the number of redraws to the "Preview Stage" Desklot has to do.

Click into any other property, for example the "Width" setting box, and you will notice that where the "Stock Number" data WAS displayed on the stage now displays the "Make" data from your first vehicle record in the database.

Next we will fine tune position the "Element" to where we want. Notice that the "Preview Stage" in our graphics (shown above to the right) is showing dots every 10 pixels. That is because while designing this tutorial, we turned the "Grid" on. You may do the same if you like by clicking the "View" menu at the top of the screen and then "Grid". 

The reason we display dots every 10 pixels is because the position settings in DeskLot are based on screen pixels. Basically everything you see on any Windows™ screen is a colored dot... called a pixel. So, when we want to position an "Element" somewhere, we basically tell DeskLot to display it "X" number of pixels to the right of zero (far left) and "Y" number of pixels from the top. The dots or "Grid" help us know where to display an "Element".

In this example, we will set the "Make" field data to be displayed 20 pixels from the left ("X Position") of the paper edge and 40 pixels from the top ("Y Position") of the paper edge.

If it is not already selected from the "Select a Current Element to Modify" list, select "Vehicle Field Data 1" by clicking it in the list.

Now, use the "X Position" property setting (shown below to the right) to change the numeric value from whatever it is to "20" (or you may use the mini scroll bars to set the value).

Click off into another property setting (for example, into the "Y Position" Field) and you will notice the "Vehicle Field Data" on the "Preview Stage", in this case the "Vehicle Make" moved from left to right so that the left most edge of the data is display 20 pixels from the left of the printable paper edge.

Now click into the "Y Position" property setting and change the value to "40", and then click off into another property setting. You will notice the position of the data moved from top to bottom to 40 pixels from the top of the printable page area.

For reference, the width setting tells DeskLot how far to allow the text to go from left to right before forcing it to wrap to a new line.

Probably one of the easiest ways to design a new sticker configuration is to initially just place each element you wish to be included on your sticker onto the general vicinity where you want it, then set the "Grid" dots to "on" (i.e. checked) and click "File" and then "Print" from the menu at the top of the screen. This will make a print out of the configuration with "Rulers" on each edge so you may more easily know exactly what "X" and "Y" coordinates as well as "Widths" and "Heights" you want to set "Elements" to. 

Go ahead. Spend 5 minutes placing each element type on the preview stage and playing with each of the property settings that are available for the various elements, such as position, height, width, font, color, custom text, graphics, vehicle photo's, etc. Once you spend this 5 minutes, you will be very comfortable designing your own sticker configurations.

As with learning any new program, there is always a bit of a learning curve however, it is typically being reported to us that most people are able to learn the DeskLot sticker configuration screen and design their 1st sticker within from 30 minutes to an hour. Not bad considering that once you are done, you are done and can begin saving thousands upon thousands by printing your own stickers... and there is no feeling like designing your own sticker and having the gratification each time you look on the lot and see what you made. 

DeskLot is a little more difficult than other inferior window sticker printing software packages because it can do so much and leaves you in control of what you want to place and where. Most window sticker printing software just has you fill in a blank here and there... however, you can tell that this limits you to what THEY wanted and where THEY wanted it. With DeskLot, whether it be how you design your stickers, how you configure exporting or importing data from other services and software, or exporting your inventory to your website, you are in control because DeskLot lets you do it your way.

Don't forget to press F1 within the sticker design screen (or anywhere else within DeskLot) and a detailed help system. We suggest reading the help associated with the sticker design environment. It will help you understand much more than you will accidentally discover.

Happy designing!