by Onsite Systems

Calibrations

A calibration places each field on the printed PDF at the right pixel coordinates, font size, and alignment. Captisio supports multi-page placements (the same field can appear on multiple pages with independent geometry), repeating groups (one block + row math), and per-overlay font + alignment tuning.

Creating a calibration

  1. Open Captis Admin → the form you want to calibrate → Calibrations.
  2. Click + to start a new calibration. Captisio asks for a versioned label so you can keep prior calibrations archived.
  3. Upload the source PDF (or a tenant template). The canvas renders page 1 with a transparent overlay grid.
  4. For each field you want to position, drag a box on the page. The field appears in the left list once you place it.
  5. Refine the placement with the inspector on the right: font, font size, alignment, autoshrink, word-wrap, line spacing, date format (for date fields).
  6. For multi-page placements, navigate to the next page and add another overlay for the same field.
  7. Save the calibration. When you mark it Active, the live form renders against it.
Page indexing. The schema stores overlays with page indexes that are 0-based; the underlying PDF viewer (pdfrx) uses 1-based page numbers. The renderer converts at the boundary — you never have to think about this in the editor.

Repeating groups

When you place a repeating-group container, you draw the row-0 rectangles for each child once. At render time Captisio computes per-row positions as row0 + (rowHeight + rowSpacing) × rowIndex. That means you only calibrate one row and Captisio handles the arithmetic for the rest.

  • Repeat direction — vertical (most common), horizontal, or free (per-row manual placement).
  • Row spacing — extra vertical (or horizontal) gap added between consecutive rows.
  • Count — how many rows to render before the next page. Defaults to the field’s Max rows.

Multi-placement fields

A field can have many placements with different geometry. Common cases: a name field that repeats on every page’s header, or a signature block that appears once per witness.

Each placement is its own row in the schema’s x-overlays list. You can change font, size, alignment, etc. per placement — the renderer iterates and draws each one independently.

Per-overlay options

OptionWhat it does
Font familyHelvetica, Times, Courier, etc.
Font sizeBase size before auto-shrink.
Bold / ItalicStyle flags.
Text alignLeft, center, right.
Auto-shrink fontShrink down to Min font size when the value overflows the box.
Min font sizeFloor for auto-shrink.
Vertical alignTop, center, bottom (used by multi-line boxes).
Line spacingExtra pixels between wrapped lines.
Word wrapWrap long values across multiple lines instead of clipping.
Date formatDate-field-only. Pick from MM/dd/yyyy, ISO, year-only, month-only, day-only.
Tab orderUsed by the form-fill UI when navigating fields. Optional override.

Activating a calibration

A form can have many calibrations stored side-by-side; only one is active at a time. Captisio tracks the active calibration on a singleton pointer doc, so switching between calibrations is atomic — no risk of the renderer using a partial state.

Once your calibration is happy, head to Wizard & rules to define the fill-in flow.