Print Designer: Request Slip

The request slip is the page Aeon prints for a request — the sheet that travels with the material or sits in the stacks while it's pulled, showing the title, call number, transaction number, researcher, and whatever else your reading room needs on paper. The Print Designer is where you decide what that slip looks like.

You work in a visual, drag-and-drop canvas in the web staff client: open a request-slip template, lay the page out the way you want it printed — drop in a title, place the call number, add a barcode — preview it, and save. Aeon renders the slip to PDF and staff print it from the browser. If you're coming from the Aeon 6 desktop client, this is where the PrintRequest.docx Word mail-merge template now lives: there's no .docx on a file share and no Excel data source to point at — the layout and its data all live in Aeon.

When you'll use this

• You're setting Aeon up and want the printed request slip to match your house style.
• Staff asked for a field on the slip that isn't there (a custom field, the appointment time, a second call-number line).
• You're moving from the Aeon 6 desktop client and want to recreate your existing PrintRequest.docx layout — see Bringing a Word template across.
• You need more than one request-slip layout (say, a full slip and a compact one) — the designer keeps multiple named templates.

This is the request slip, not the callslip

Aeon has six print template types: Request, Callslip, User, Invoice, Invoice Statement, and Digitization Request. This page covers the request slip. The callslip has its own Print Designer: Callslip — the same designer pointed at a different template type. The two are independent; editing one never changes the other.

Opening the Request Slip designer

1. Open the Customization Manager and, in the left nav, expand Designers.
2. Choose Print Designer, then its Request sub-item. (Print Designer lists all six types — Request, Callslip, User, Invoice, Invoice Statement, Digitization Request — as sub-items.)
3. Aeon loads the request-slip templates and selects the default one. If none exists yet, you'll see "No Request templates found" with a Create Template button.

Requires the Designers capability

Creating, editing, renaming, duplicating, deleting, importing, and exporting print templates require the Designers configuration capability. Without it, the template actions are blocked. (Previewing a slip also works for anyone with View on Requests — the preview renders sample data, not a real request.) See Roles & Capabilities.

Use a real screen

The designer needs room to work. On a phone-sized screen it shows "Larger Display Required" and asks you to switch to a tablet or desktop. Plan to design templates at a desk, not on a handheld.

How the designer is laid out

With a template open you have a toolbar across the top, a panel on the left, and the page canvas filling the rest:

Area	What it's for
Toolbar (top)	The template selector and its ⋯ menu, undo/redo, page size, orientation, Margins, the layout mode, records-per-page, group/ungroup, Preview, zoom, the save controls, and ? for the shortcut list.
Left panel	Two tabs — Fields and Insert — for adding content to the page (see below).
Canvas (center)	The slip itself, drawn to scale with rulers. You arrange everything here by dragging.

You edit a piece of the slip by selecting it — a small floating toolbar appears just above the selection with that element's settings (its field, format, styling, visibility conditions, and exact position). Nothing you place is permanent until you save.

The save indicator on the toolbar always tells you where you stand: Saved, Unsaved, or Saving....

Adding content: the Fields and Insert tabs

Everything on the slip is an element. The left panel gives you two ways to add one.

The Fields tab

The Fields tab is a searchable list of the request's data fields — transaction number, item title, call number, researcher name, your custom fields, and so on — grouped by category, each with a small badge for its data type (for example STRING, NUMBER, or DATE). Type in the Search fields... box to filter.

• Click a field to drop it on the page. It lands as a labeled row — the field's label next to its value (for example, Call Number: followed by the call number).
• Hold ⌥ Alt while clicking to drop the value alone, with no label.
• Drag a field onto the canvas to place it exactly where you want.
• To add several at once, ⌘/Ctrl-click each field to select them (a checkmark marks the selected rows), then click Add to page or drag them on — they stack as one block in the order you picked them. Clear drops the selection.

The panel reminds you of this at the bottom: "Fields land with a label — hold ⌥ Alt for the field alone. ⌘/Ctrl-click to select several, then drag or add them as one block."

The Insert tab

The Insert tab holds the building blocks that aren't tied to a single field:

Element	What it puts on the slip
Text	A static label that prints exactly as typed — e.g. "Special Collections Request" or "Do not reshelve."
Field	A single data value, unbound at first — you choose which field after placing it.
Barcode	A scannable barcode generated from a field value, typically the transaction number.
Line	A horizontal rule for separating sections.
Vertical Line	A vertical rule — for dividing columns on the slip.
Rectangle	A box or border.
Image	A picture from the image gallery — usually your institution's logo.

A Tables group offers repeating tables — Billing Charges Table, Payment History Table, and Notes Table (Date, Note, and Added By columns) — for slips that itemize charges or payments or carry the request's notes; a plain pull slip usually won't need one.

Below those, an Auto Fields group prints values about the printout itself rather than the request:

• Page Number — the current page number.
• Page Count — the total number of pages.
• Current Date — the date the document is printed.
• Printed By — the staff member printing the document.

Drag any Insert item onto the canvas, or click it to drop it near the center of the page.

Editing an element

Select an element and its floating toolbar appears above it. What the toolbar offers depends on the element:

• A field shows its field button (the bound field's name, with a chevron), a Format button, a fallback field button, and text-styling controls (font, size, bold/italic, alignment, color). Click the field button to open a searchable field picker and choose a different field; or double-click the field on the canvas to jump straight into that picker.

• Format opens a small popover: a Format menu — None, Currency, Number, Short Date, Long Date, or Date & Time — plus Prefix and Suffix boxes (for example a $ prefix on a charge, or a % suffix). Picking a field also applies a sensible default format for its data type.

  

• Fallback field picks the field printed when the primary field is empty — the popover reads "Printed instead when Preferred Name is empty." A field that has one carries a blue badge on the canvas, and the button's tooltip reads "If empty, prints: First Name". This is the visual replacement for the Word { IF A "" B } cascade.

• Text offers typography controls; double-click a text element to edit its words in place.

• Line and Rectangle offer shape styling (color, border, fill).

• Image and Barcode offer their own source/appearance controls.

• Every element also has a visibility button (see Hiding a field when it's empty) and a position control for exact placement, plus Duplicate and Delete.

Placing a field — worked example

To print the transaction number near the top of the slip:

1. On the Fields tab, type transaction in the search box.
2. Drag Transaction Number onto the canvas where you want it (or ⌥ Alt-click it to drop the value without a label).
3. The field appears and is selected, with its floating toolbar above it — ready to format or reposition.

Repeat for the values your reading room needs: item title, author, call number, location, researcher name, request date, and so on. Every field in the list is available because the slip is built from the request's own record.

Arranging and fine-tuning

• Move an element by dragging it; resize it with its handles.
• Nudge a selection with the arrow keys — hold Shift for a larger step.
• Select several with Shift-click (or ⌘/Ctrl-click); a floating align/distribute toolbar appears, and you can Group them (⌘G) so they move as one. Ungroup with ⌘⇧G.
• Standard editing shortcuts work on the canvas: copy (⌘C), paste (⌘V), duplicate (⌘D), delete (Delete/Backspace), select all (⌘A), and undo / redo (⌘Z and ⌘⇧Z). Press ? for the full shortcut list.

Page setup

The toolbar shapes the physical page:

• Page size — Letter, Legal, A4, A5, plus any page size your site has defined (each listed with its dimensions). Custom… opens a Custom Page Size dialog for one-off Width and Height in in or mm; Manage page sizes… opens the site list. As the dialog says, a size you use on more than one template is better defined once as a site page size.
• Orientation — Portrait or Landscape.
• Margins — the Margins button opens Page Margins (in). Set Top, Right, Bottom, and Left in inches, then click Apply.
• Records per page — in the default Absolute layout, the grid button (it reads, for example, 1 per page). For a normal one-slip-per-page request slip, leave it at 1. To print compact slips several to a sheet, open it and set Rows and Columns (with optional Row Gap / Column Gap in inches), then click Apply. Aeon shows the resulting Cell size and how many Records per page that makes.

The layout mode control switches between Absolute — the fixed canvas this page describes — and Flow, which stacks elements in bands that grow with their content. In Flow, the records-per-page button is replaced by a Select offering New page per record or Continuous (separator band between), and continuous-height stock (a receipt roll) becomes available in the page-size list. Leave a request slip on Absolute unless you're printing to roll stock.

Hiding a field when it's empty (conditions)

A common request: "don't print the Special Request line when it's blank." The designer handles this with each element's visibility control (the eye button on its floating toolbar).

1. Select the element and open its visibility popover.
2. For the simplest case, turn on Hide if empty — the element drops off any slip where that field has no value.
3. For anything more involved, click Edit conditions... to open the Edit Conditions dialog ("Hide this element when:"). Click Add Condition, choose a field and an operator — is empty, is not empty, equals, does not equal, contains, is greater than, or is less than — and a value where one's needed. With more than one condition, the element hides when any of them match ("Element is hidden when any of these conditions are met (OR logic).").

If you're recreating an Aeon 6 template, this is where the hidden Word IF field codes (the logic behind conditional lines like "DO NOT PHOTOCOPY") are rebuilt — visually, instead of in toggled field codes.

Conditions on a whole group

Select a group and its floating toolbar has its own visibility control, so an entire block — an optional billing section or shipping address, say — shows or hides as a unit.

Previewing before you commit

Click Preview in the toolbar at any time. Aeon renders the current template to a PDF using sample data — a representative transaction number, title, researcher, dates, and your custom fields — and opens it in a Preview dialog so you see the slip laid out as it will print. From there you can Download the sample PDF or send it to your Print dialog. Preview reflects the canvas as it stands, including edits you haven't saved yet.

Saving and managing templates

• Save with the toolbar's Save button or ⌘S; the indicator switches to Saved.
• Discard changes with the discard button that appears next to the save indicator while you have unsaved edits — it reverts to the last saved version.

A request slip is stored as a template, and the designer keeps as many as you like. The template selector on the left of the toolbar switches between them (the one marked default is highlighted), and its ⋯ menu manages them:

• New Template — start a fresh request slip.
• Duplicate — copy the current one as a starting point (you name the copy).
• Rename — give it a meaningful name.
• Set as Default — mark which request slip Aeon reaches for first. Only one template per type is the default; setting a new one clears the old.
• Export / Import — download the template (with its images) as an .aeon-print-template.zip package, or load one back in — handy for moving a layout between sites or environments.
• Import from Word Document… — bring a Word template in (see below).
• Delete — remove the template.

Which template prints

Printing a request slip from a request always opens a print dialog — Aeon never prints silently. When your site has more than one request-slip template, the dialog carries a template picker, which pre-selects in this order: the one that staff member last used for request slips (Aeon remembers each person's choice), then the default template, then the first template. So a staffer who has printed before lands on their last choice, and someone who never has lands on the default — which is why you set the default to the layout most of your staff should start from. Picking a different template in the dialog sticks: it becomes that person's last-used for next time. From the dialog, staff preview and then Print or Download; printing is recorded on the request's history as Request Printed.

Bringing a Word template across

Coming from the Aeon 6 desktop client, you don't have to rebuild your PrintRequest.docx by hand.

1. Open the template ⋯ menu and choose Import from Word Document….
2. Pick your existing .doc or .docx file.
3. Aeon parses it, converts the merge fields it recognizes into designer fields, pulls in images, and creates a new request-slip template — then opens a summary headed Imported followed by your file's name, listing what came across. Keep open while I edit docks it as an Import Summary panel on the right so you can work from it; Done closes it.

Review the import, especially unmapped and IF fields

• Unmapped fields: merge fields Aeon can't match to a known request field come in unmapped and carry a warning badge on the canvas. The summary flags them ("These appear on the canvas with a warning badge — pick a real field for each.") — select each and choose the right field from its picker.
• Conditional IF fields are not converted. Word IF merge fields — the ones that drove conditional text like "DO NOT PHOTOCOPY" — are skipped and listed in the summary ("Conditional IF fields aren't converted in v1. Use element-level conditions in the designer."). Rebuild that logic with element conditions.
• Always Preview an imported template before making it the default — spacing usually needs a touch-up.