Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I get photos from?

You can import photos from either your camera, the photo album or directly from your Facebook accoun.

Can I insert drawings easily?

You can create drawings within Strip Designer. Simply select "Blank Image" as source when inserting a photo and select "Paint On" to draw on the image. The drawing tools in Strip Designer are very basic, so consider using another app like Brushes or Sketchbook for professional looking drawings.

How do I select a background color for a drawing?

You cannot select a color for the canvas, but you can easily paint the entire canvas in a few brush strokes. Zoom out as far as possible. Select a color and select a brush with maximal opacity and hardness, and make sure that the brush size is set to finger. Paint the entire canvas in a few strokes.

Why do items look slightly pixelated on the editing screen?

To save device memory and make editing as smooth as possible, Strip Designer renders different items in different resolutions while editing. The editing resolution and the resolution of the final strip are independent.

Can I make cells or portions of photos transparent?

Yes! Follow the following three steps

1. The background (under the photo) of a cells is default black opaque. You have to change this first. Go to the "Frame" setting of an image-cell and set the "Fill" color's opacity to zero (using the slider), the cell will now be transparent in areas not covered by the photo.
2. To remove the outlines of a cell, select "Frame" and, then pick the first frame style with a width of zero.
3. To make portions of the photo transparent, use the "Paint On" tool and select the eraser and choose "-" of the "Add/Remove" tool. Then mask out the portions of the photo that you wish to make completely transparent. These areas will only appear transparent on the comic, when you have made the background color of the cell transparent.

If you unlock cells, move them, and change their "order" you can stack multiple cells on top of each other.

How do I get the best possible/highest resolution output?

Generally, use the PDF export options. PDF files will include speech balloons and other page items in vector format. Photos are embedded in a compressed form, but included in a higher resolution than if you use the bitmap export options (PNG and JPEG).

When viewed or printed, images from PDF files are generated an output resolution fitting for the target device. Vector elements are drawn and embedded photos are resampled at the view and print time, rather than at the file generation time, which should give better results.

To maximize the photo quality in PDF files, set the "High-Res Photos" option to "On" under the Strip Design settings in the Settings app on your home-screen. Please note that this uses additionally memory which can cause the application to close when you tap "Share".

Current highest bitmap resolution is 2048 pixels in the largest dimension of the resulting image.

Why does Strip Designer close suddenly when I tap "Share"?

Occasionally, our users have experienced that the app closes when they try to share Strips with high-resolution photos. This happens because Strip Designer needs more random access memory (not flash storage memory) than available.

Strip Designer generally down-samples photos to a manageable size, but this feature may have been turned off. If you experience this type of close, try to turn "High-res Photos" off in the Strip Design settings found in the Settings app on your home-screen.

How can I insert text without a balloon or text-box (i.e. just text)?

Insert a text-box balloon. Set its background color opacity to 0 and its border color opacity to 0. This way only the text will show.

What sort of font options are there for balloons?

You can select any of the fonts on the iPhone as well as normal, bold, or italics. You can also select the size of the font for the balloons, or simply ask Strip Designer to fit the text to the balloon size, by tapping "Fit" in the font panel.

How do I install additional fonts?

Please read the section on Installing Fonts in the Advanced Topics.

How do I add additional pages?

On the iPad you can simply tap the "Page flap" on the left side of the screen to reveal the page list. Tap the "+" on the bottom of the page list to add additional pages.

On iPhone and iPod devices you need to enter the page options, by tapping "Page" on the bottom of the screen to reveal the page-flap.

I don't see the page flap. Where is it?

Multiple pages are disabled on older devices (i.e. iPhone 3G as well as 1st and 2nd generation iPods) due to hardware constraints. Otherwise, you should see the "flap" if you view the page properties by tapping "Page".

Can I change the size of pages?

Yes. Tap on "Page" and "Size" to change page size to one of the built-in sizes. If you change the page-size in a multipage-strip all pages are resized.

Why are all sizes in a strip identical?

To export a PDF book of a multipage strip, all sizes must be kept identical.

How do I ensure that the size of balloons and text match?

Please read about balloon properties in the Advanced Topics section for further information.

How many cells can I have per page?

Due to memory constraints, especially older devices, Strip Designer is currently limited to 12 total cells (photos and text combined) on one page. To keep memory usage low, Strip designer also renders photos on the screen in lower resolution, once you add more than 4 photos.

Can I create my own stickers?

Yes. Tap "Add", then "Sticker", then select "Custom stickers", and tap "+" to create a sticker from a photo or a completely blank sticker. You can mask out portions of photos from your photo album and use them as stickers or draw your own using the sticker editor.

Why do stickers sometimes look blurred while editing the strip, but great in the final rendering? Which resolution are they saved in?

While editing Strip Designer uses a low-resolution variant of the stickers (256x256 pixels) to preserve memory. For most stickers a higher resolution (1024x1024 or 512x512 pixel) version is used for the final output. Custom stickers are stored in 1024x1024 pixels.

How do I insert a person from one photo into another photo?

Create a strip with the background photo in one of the photo-cells. Now, create a sticker (tap "Add", "Sticker", "Custom Sticker", "+"), and select the second photo from your photo album. Cut the background out of the photo and save the sticker. Position the resulting sticker on top of the first photo in the strip.

Is Strip Designer available on my Mac, PC, or other mobile platforms such as Android?

Not at this time. While we are looking at other platforms, we have no decisive plans. Let's us know if you want it ported.

What should I do if I have a question that isn't on this list?

Please email us. We usually reply within a few hours and often faster. Don't hesitate; We are always happy to answer any question.