AdPlacer — User Manual

1. Getting Started

Opening AdPlacer

Navigate to the AdPlacer URL in your browser. No login is required on the internal network.

Starting a New Issue

1. Select the Edition from the dropdown in the top navigation bar (e.g. BDN Weekend).
2. Set the Date using the date picker.
3. Click New Issue.

AdPlacer fetches the ad manifest for that edition and date from NetSuite and populates the Ad Manifest panel at the bottom of the screen. The canvas layout area appears with the publication's section and page structure.

Loading an Existing Issue

Click Load in the navbar to open a previously saved issue. See Section 13 for details.

2. Interface Overview

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Navbar: Edition | Date | New Issue | Zoom | Save | ...  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                          │
│   Canvas Area — section rows, page cards                 │
│   (scrolls horizontally)                                 │
│                                                          │
├──────── drag handle ─────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Ad Manifest Panel — run list of all ads for this issue  │
│  (scrolls vertically)                                    │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Navbar Controls

Canvas Area

The canvas area shows the publication grid. Each section runs as a horizontal row. Each page within a section is a card containing a canvas where ads are placed. Pages are labeled with their folio ID (e.g. A001) and an L / R / F / B badge indicating left, right, front, or back of the publication.

Facing pages are displayed side-by-side as a spread.

Ad Manifest Panel

The panel at the bottom of the screen lists every ad in the NetSuite manifest for the current issue. Drag ads from here onto a page canvas to place them. The panel height can be adjusted by dragging the handle at its top edge — your preferred height is remembered across sessions.

3. The Ad Manifest Panel

Columns

Status Icons

• ✓ Green check — ad is placed on the canvas
• 📌 Blue pin — ad has been locally edited; NetSuite refreshes won't overwrite it
• ⚠ Yellow warning — ad is missing dimensions and cannot be placed
• Red row tint — ad was edited locally but has since been cancelled in NetSuite; review needed

Filtering and Sorting

• Type in the Filter box (top right of the panel) to search by client name, SO number, section, or notes.
• Click Unplaced first to push all placed and invalid ads to the bottom of the list.

Resizing the Panel

Drag the handle at the top edge of the panel up or down to show more or fewer ads at once. Your preferred height is saved automatically.

4. Placing Ads on the Canvas

Drag and Drop

1. Find the ad in the Ad Manifest panel.
2. Click and drag the ad row up onto the target page canvas.
3. Release to drop. The ad snaps to the nearest column edge.

The ad is positioned according to the page's current gravity mode (see Section 7). In Manual mode, it lands at your drop position, clamped within the page margins.

Placement Rules

• Ads cannot overlap. If a dropped ad would overlap an existing ad, the drop is rejected and the ad returns to unplaced in the manifest.
• Ads stay within the page margins. No ad can be placed above the top margin or below the bottom margin, in any mode.
• Color warning. Placing a CMYK (color) ad on a Black & White page shows a warning. The placement still goes through — it's a reminder to check the page color setting.
• Invalid ads (missing dimensions) cannot be dragged. They show a yellow warning icon.

Column Snapping

Ads snap horizontally to the nearest column edge on drop and during drag, keeping positions aligned to the publication grid.

5. Working with Placed Ads

Moving a Placed Ad

Click and drag any placed ad to reposition it. The ad snaps to column edges horizontally and is clamped within the top and bottom page margins. If it would overlap another ad on release, it rolls back to its original position.

Nudging with Arrow Keys

Click an ad to select it (blue border), then use ↑ / ↓ to nudge it vertically in 1-pixel increments. Hold Shift to nudge by one inter-ad margin (9pt) at a time.

Nudging is hard-stopped by the page margins and by adjacent ads in the same column lane.

For double truck ads, nudging either half automatically mirrors the vertical position to the other half in real time.

Deleting a Placed Ad

Select an ad by clicking it, then press Delete or Backspace. The ad returns to the manifest as unplaced. Alternatively, use the remove control in the page card footer.

Ad Tickets

Placed ads display as "tickets" showing:

• Client name — top left, bold
• Layout notes (pink italic) or memo (grey italic) if notes are empty
• Depth in inches — centered
• Ad ID — bottom right, light grey

Color ads have a light blue background; B&W ads have a light grey background. Double truck ads have an amber background.

6. Page Settings

Header Controls (per page)

Footer Controls (per page)

7. Gravity Modes

Gravity controls how ads are positioned vertically when placed or moved.

8. Page Management

Adding a Page

Click the + button in the footer of any page card to add a new page at the end of that section. Page IDs auto-increment (e.g. A007 → A008).

Removing a Page

Click − to remove the last page in a section. If that page has ads on it, you'll be asked to confirm. Removed pages cannot be recovered — move or delete any ads first.

Swapping Pages

Click Swap on a page card to swap all of its content — ads, color setting, banner, gravity mode, and lock state — with the adjacent page. Useful for reordering pages without manually moving ads.

9. Double Truck Ads

A double truck is a full-spread ad that spans both pages of a facing pair. AdPlacer handles these automatically.

Placing a Double Truck

Drag a 12-column ad from the manifest onto either page of a facing spread. AdPlacer will:

• Split the ad into two linked halves, one on each page
• Display both with an amber background and a DT ▶ / ◀ DT label

Moving a Double Truck

Drag either half — the other half mirrors the vertical position in real time. Horizontal position is fixed to the live area of each page.

Removing a Double Truck

Delete either half (select it, press Delete). Both halves are removed at the same time.

Requirements

• The target page must have a facing page (part of a spread).
• The companion page must not be locked.

10. Refreshing the Manifest

As an issue is updated in NetSuite throughout the day — new ads sold, sizes changed, ads cancelled — click Refresh in the Ad Manifest panel header to fetch the latest data without resetting your layout.

Sync Summary

After refreshing, a summary bar shows what changed:

Canvas positions of unaffected ads are fully preserved.

11. Editing Manifest Ads

Sometimes an ad's dimensions, color, or notes need to be corrected locally before NetSuite is updated.

Opening the Edit Modal

Click the pencil icon on any manifest row. The edit button is disabled while the ad is placed on the canvas — remove it from the canvas first.

Editable Fields

All fields are editable: client name, SO number, file ID, size (columns and depth), color, section, rep, notes, memo, and memo main. The internal ad ID is read-only.

Pinned Ads

Saving any change pins the ad (blue pin icon in the status column). Pinned ads:

• Are skipped during Manifest Refresh — your local values are preserved
• Show a blue banner at the top of the edit modal confirming they are pinned
• Can be unpinned via the Unpin & reset to NetSuite button in the edit modal, which restores the original NetSuite values

Pinned Ads Cancelled in NetSuite

If a pinned ad is subsequently cancelled in NetSuite, it remains in the manifest (it cannot be auto-removed because you have local edits). The edit modal shows a red "Removed in NetSuite" banner. At that point you have two choices:

• Unpin & reset — the ad will be removed from the manifest on the next Refresh
• Leave pinned — the ad stays in the manifest if you expect it to be reactivated in NetSuite

12. Saving Your Work

Save

Click Save in the navbar.

• First save of a new session: A prompt appears pre-filled with the default name ({MM-DD-YYYY} {Edition} Layout). Edit the name if needed, then confirm.
• Subsequent saves: The file is updated silently with no prompt.

Save As

Click Save As next to the Save button. A prompt appears pre-filled with the current filename. Edit the name and confirm to save as a new file — the new file becomes the active issue going forward.

Backups

Every time a file is overwritten, the previous version is automatically saved as {name}_backup.json. Only one backup is kept per file — each save replaces the previous backup. Backups appear in the Load dialog under a Backups section and can be opened like any other issue.

Conflict Warning

If another session saved the same file after you opened it, a warning appears before your save goes through. You can choose to overwrite (a backup of the other session's work is kept automatically) or cancel to review first.

13. Loading a Saved Issue

Click Load in the navbar to open the issue list. Issues are sorted by most recently saved.

• Use the search box to filter by name or date.
• Click any issue to load it. The canvas and manifest are restored from the saved file.
• Backup files appear at the bottom of the list with a grey "backup" badge. Load a backup and use Save As to restore it under a new name.

14. Reports

Reports are accessed from the Reports dropdown in the navbar. They are generated from the live manifest and current canvas state — no separate export step needed.

Minis

A full-screen page of thumbnail previews for every page in the layout, generated directly from the canvas. Each thumbnail has a download link for the individual PNG. Use Minis for a quick visual check of the full layout before sending downstream.

Runsheet

A validation report for every ad in the manifest (placed and unplaced). For each ad, the runsheet checks:

• Whether the EPS file exists in S3
• Whether the colorspace matches the order (CMYK vs B&W)
• Whether the physical dimensions of the file match the ordered size (±0.1" tolerance)

Results show a green check or red X per ad, with specific error details where applicable. Click any column header to sort the table by that column.

Size Report

A layout summary showing total page count, page breakdown by section, color pages by section, and all color ads from the full manifest. Use the Size Report for billing and production reporting.

15. Reports Page

The Reports Page (/reports) is a read-only companion page for team members who need to view reports but don't work in AdPlacer directly — paginators, editors, and others who need to see runsheets or size reports for a given issue.

Who It's For

Anyone who needs to check the runsheet, size report, or page minis for a saved issue — without accessing the full ad placement tool. No NetSuite connection or layout session is required.

How to Use It

1. Navigate to /reports in your browser.
2. Select a saved issue from the Issue dropdown in the top bar.
3. Use the Reports dropdown to open Minis, Runsheet, or Size Report for that issue.

What's Not Available

The Reports Page has no ad placement controls, no drag-and-drop, no NetSuite manifest fetch, and no save or download functions. It is view-only.

16. Download Package

Click Download to export a ZIP file containing everything needed for production:

17. Zoom

Use the Zoom control in the navbar to scale the canvas display. Options are 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%.

Zoom affects the display only — all underlying ad positions and dimensions are stored at full resolution (72 PPI). Zoom controls are disabled until an issue is started or loaded.

18. Template Manager

A template defines the page structure for a publication edition — how many sections there are, how many pages each section has, and which pages are designated as color. Templates are stored in editions.json and persist across server restarts.

Opening the Template Manager

Click Template in the navbar. The Template Manager modal opens.

Editing an Existing Template

1. In the Load existing dropdown at the top of the modal, select the template you want to edit.
2. All fields — template name, publication, sections, pages, and color designations — are pre-filled from the current saved config.
3. Make your changes (see fields below).
4. Click Save Template. Changes are written to editions.json on disk immediately and the Edition dropdown in the navbar is updated.

Creating a New Template

1. Click New Template (or leave the Load existing dropdown on the placeholder).
2. Fill in the template fields.
3. Click Create Template. The new template is saved to disk and added to the Edition dropdown.

Template Fields

Renaming a Template

Load the template, change the Template Name field, and click Save Template. The old name is removed from the Edition dropdown and replaced with the new name. Any saved issues that used the old template name will still load correctly — the name is stored in the issue file at save time.

19. InDesign Script — Create Ad Frames

The Create Ad Frames (AdPlacer) script is a new addition to the InDesign script panel that brings your AdPlacer layout into InDesign automatically. It places ad frame placeholders on the active page, sized and positioned to match the AdPlacer layout exactly. The existing scripts in the panel continue to work as before — this is an addition, not a replacement.

How to Use It

1. Open your InDesign document and navigate to the page you want to populate (e.g. A2).
2. In InDesign, go to Window → Utilities → Scripts to open the Script Panel, then run Create ad frames (AdPlacer).jsx.
3. A dialog appears with a Select Issue dropdown — pick the layout issue from the list. Issues are shown most-recent first. The script remembers your last selection.
4. Click Create Frames.
5. The script reads the current page name from InDesign, fetches the ad positions for that page from AdPlacer, and creates text frames at the correct size and position. Each frame is labeled with a file marker (e.g. @SO358948@).
6. A confirmation alert shows how many frames were created.

Troubleshooting

Tips & Common Questions