Torn Pages

Sometimes you want your book to have torn or weathered edges to pages in your book, where bits of paper have been torn away from the paper. This is possible in Megazine, but requires a little planning, so make sure to read this whole article before you start.

Make the pages into .PNG and make sure you have a transparent layer in the .PNG.

In the "torn away" sections, make the PNG transparent.

Load your images into megazine as you normally would.

Use the bgcolor="0" on the page to make the default background not visible.

You should now have torn sections on your pages.

Optimize Performance
You can have as many as you like, without slowing down engine performance. I have set the maximum number of pages to be turned at once to 3 with no visible slowing down to page turns. The main point to be aware of, is that the next page must not have a transparent portion of its page showing through to the page already being viewed. That way, there is no overlapping transparency.



I have included a screenshot to my folder containing the PNG files I use for my book. Note that each complete page has its transparent torn edge overlapping a non-transparent portion of the next page. Each single page has a reverse horizontal image of the same image on its otherside.

Optimize Filesize
PNG is not nearly efficient as jpeg. If you're making entire pages in your megazine PNGs, your megazine will grow rather quickly. Instead, break your pages up into 4 slices. The center image will be a jpeg that contains most of your content to keep file sizes small.

The other 3 images will be long and thin PNGs, one for the top, one for the right, and one for the bottom. They should be as wide as the widest tear, and line up with your jpeg. Place them all in your megazine so that the PNGs surround your jpeg and cover the edges, providing the torn transparency.