Create presets

As you make adjustments to your files, you may be creating a complex and precise set of encoding and display options that would be time-consuming to duplicate in future projects. You can avoid duplicating these settings by using Microsoft Expression Encoder to save any combination of these adjustments as a preset. You can apply multiple presets to each job. When you save settings as a preset, you can quickly apply your ideal settings to any video that you import later, thereby saving time. Expression Encoder saves presets as .xml files. By default, presets that you create are saved in the "[User name]\Documents\Expression\Expression Encoder 4\JobPresets" folder. You can change this directory location.

You can also apply a saved or included preset to your content. For more information, see Apply presets.

To save your current settings as a preset

1. Do one of the following:

   • In the Media Content panel, right-click the file whose settings you want to save as a preset, and click Save current settings as preset.

   • Click the Presets tab. (If you can't see the Presets tab, on the Window menu, click Presets.) Then, on the bottom of the panel, click Create new user preset .

2. In the Save Current Settings as Job Preset dialog box, type a name for the preset and the path of the location where you want to save it. Click Browse to browse to a location.

3. Click the arrow corresponding to a settings category to expand that category and view the settings that you can save.

4. Do one of the following:

   • If you want to save all the settings in all the categories, click All. To clear the selections, click None.

   • If you want to save all the settings in a particular category, click the box next to the setting that you want to save.

   • If you want to save only particular parameters within a category, expand the category, locate those parameters, and click the corresponding boxes to select them.

5. In the menu corresponding to your setting, select an option to specify how Expression Encoder will apply the saved presets to subsequent media files.

   • Click Absolute to apply the preset using the specifications in the setting.

   • Click Relative to adjust the preset setting to account for a media file that has different attributes than the current media file.

   • Click Merge to combine the saved metadata with any other metadata that may be in subsequent files that you apply the preset to (this option is available only for Metadata, Markers, and Script commands).

   • Click Replace to delete any existing metadata and replace it with the saved metadata.

6. Click OK.

To choose a new directory for your saved presets

1. Do one of the following:

   • In the Media Content panel, right-click any file, point to Apply Preset, and then click Change default preset directory.

   • Click the Presets tab. (If you can't see the Presets tab, on the Window menu, click Presets.) In the presets list, select the preset whose location you want to change. At the bottom of the panel, click the Presets options menu , and then choose Change user directory.

2. Browse to or create a location where you want to save presets, and then click OK. Once you create a new folder for presets, Expression Encoder moves all presets from the previous directory to the new one, and displays the contents of this directory every time that you try to apply a preset.

To save panel settings as a preset

• In any panel, on the Option menu , click Save panel as preset.

See also

Tasks

Apply presets

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