UPDATED April 8: BookSmart 1.9.4 release
April 8, 2008 UPDATE: We’ve just publicly announced BookSmart 1.9.4 and the response has been fantastic. So fantastic in fact that our servers are taking a hit. If you experience any errors while downloading this new version, don’t fret, just try again in a bit. Thanks for your patience. ********UPDATE: The 1.9.4 patch has been released and is now available for download. This patch basically addresses a single issue that involved a very nasty BookSmart crash loop when doing a Save-As. ********BookSmart 1.9.3 is now in soft release. As we did with our previous release, we like to give our forums community the first chance to take the new BookSmart for a spin. We won’t make it massively public for another few days, but it is ready for you to pound on it and let us know what you think. Here’s what we went for: • Performance and stability – This build is much more stable and should have far fewer major bugs, if any. That was our main goal with this version, so you’ll notice fewer add-ons and more improvements under the hood.
• Copy and paste functionality works better, and your text will retain its formatting from other applications.
• Text handling in general is vastly improved, and text flows well across multiple containers and pages.
• We’ve improved the page layout handling. Selecting layouts and switching things around handles better.
• Books created in older versions of BookSmart will now have access to all layouts in the application, not just those that were available when the book was created. Please note: Any layouts that have been removed in the newest version of BookSmart can still be used in old books by selecting the desired page and using Duplicate Layout.
• The font menu now features every font’s plain-text name and a WYSIWYG styling that shows what each font looks like.
• The font color menu now remembers your recent font colors.
• The baby, cat and dog themes have been gone for a while, but we brought back the backgrounds, borders, and ornaments.
• We added four new collage layouts. Go ahead and download the new version and let us know what you think. Please post your comments here in this post. We’ll check back frequently, answer questions, and make improvements if you find anything new for us to fix. – Kathy
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I am excited to try it out. Thanks!!
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Some observations after trying it our for only a few minutes: 1. copy-paste from MS Word goes well regarding tabs, indents and bulletpoints. Big improvement, thank you! 2. it doesn’t seem to recognize (via copy-paste) tables from Ms Word nor Excel (becomes one long string of text in Booksmart) 3. it doesn’t recognize opentype fonts 4. strange but, certain numbers (‘2’ for example) appear somewhat faded on my screen (at least the slanted part of a number). I assume that this is not an issue when it comes to the final printing? So far a nice improvement step.
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I am having a lot of trouble with version 1.9.3, is it possible to revert to 1.9.2, where can i download version 1.9.2???
Here’s a screenshot of booksmart 1.9.3, as you can see is a mess, version 1.9.2 was working like a charm!!!
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sorry, something went wrong inserting the image tag, here it is: http://cashcb.altervista.org/screenshot.JPG
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Howdy cashcb, I am sorry to see 1.9.3 isn’t being displayed properly on your screen. Please submit a tech support incident by filling out the form at
http://www.blurb.com/help/technical_support and Customer Support will respond with 1-on-1 assistance. Best regards,
Jeremy
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I’ve contacted support :-).
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hm, 1.9.3 seems to not handle image files as well in previews and thumbnails… I get lots of blank thumbs and "loading…" never happened before in previous versions… I’m also getting some odd, inappropriate zooming, when I change page backgrounds.
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same iussues i’ve had….but much heavier, with problems of inusability for all the graphical interface of the software (template menu, thumbs,previews, images and so on, only menus were ok)...
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Howdy Jim, Interesting report… I’ll try to replicate that and see if it’s a new bug… Cheers,
Jeremy
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Here http://forums.blurb.com/forums/1/topics/2367 I said, yet again:
Still see absolutely zero here about backing up before installing the new software:
http://www.blurb.com/create/book/download
Upstream I pointed out that Kathy agreed with the need for people to know the backwards path, should the upgrade not work for them.
So, for the last time I ask, please, please put up the instructions, as suggested.
Not for me, I know how to backup. For others. Thanks!!!
Posted by
Michal
Mar 14, 2008 7:23am PDT
Permalink
Then Kathy said:
Michal,
You are right. Thanks for the reminder. We had every intention of doing this but it appears it got lost in the holiday shuffle.
I wiil see about getting this request in place before the next release.
– Kathy
Posted by
kathybad
Mar 14, 2008 9:44am PDT
Permalink
Staff
So I ask: you must have meant the next, next release. Or did you mean the next, next, next release?
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Hi Michal, Please look again at our download page. We have indeed added the following instructions: Upgrading from an older version of BookSmart? Be sure to backup your existing BookSmart files first. Here’s how to do it. – Kathy
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Thanks Kathy! I did indeed have to look again. Must have had blinders on the first time around. Thanks again!!
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Text editing now works very well with no hanging. Unfortunately, photo books with large photos—even a 10-page starter book—have the same issues, taking forever to move from page to page. I can’t work like this. 1.9.3 was my last hope. I give up. Sorry, Blurb. It was a great idea.
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I can’t get anexport book dialog with Booksmart so I just go to file explorer and move my book files manually that way I know where and IF it is backed up
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Is there a layout that lets me choose what size the container is? In the last version, I could choose full page and shrink the image to any size. Now when I do that I get a different colored background from the background color that I chose. For instance, if i have a rectangular piece and need it as big as possible, I used to do full page and shrink the picture to any size, but now that doesn’t seem to work…what I am I missing? Thanks
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Kathy, version 1.9.3 has been crashing. I lost one book, recreated it all over again in the new version over the weekend and now it has crashed too. I need help, as this book needs to be recovered and printed for a client today.
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Howdy sanadoo & folks, Sorry if I sound like a broken record. I just need to remind folks that you’re of course free to discuss crashes and performance issues on this forum. But to get actual support from Blurb Customer Service, please submit a tech support incident by filling out the form at
http://www.blurb.com/help/technical_support Best regards,
Jeremy
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Jeremy,
In Kathy’s announcement post she states:
“Go ahead and download the new version and let us know what you think. Please post your comments here in this post. We’ll check back frequently, answer questions, and make improvements if you find anything new for us to fix.”
– Kathy
Jack
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now it seems that many of us can’t open our books at all. hope this is fixed post-haste, as it has me over a barrel with a very important client.
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Hello :) any forecast about having booksmart working through a proxy/firewall to access flickr/picasa galleries? Alberto
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Howdy all, Just reassuring folks that user jimscolari and others with that same crash have been helped by customer support. There is a rather simple workaround that eliminates a bug. If anyone else has used the "save as" feature and then can’t open their book anymore, the following may solve the issue (and won’t harm your projects in case your technical issue is different): Go to My Documents>BookSmartData>YourBookFolder (find the actual folder for your book project, which should have the same name as your book).
Inside the folder for your book should be a .jpg or .png file. Drag it to your desktop.
Then, please open BookSmart and try to open your book again. This should work now, as the bug was in that thumbnail of your cover image… Please note we’re hard at work on a patch to remedy this issue. Best regards and thanks for your patience,
Jeremy
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well I just experienced the "save as" bug when I tried to make a duplicate copy of my just-finished book, and it gave me quite a scare. But I found a different workaround—-not knowing about this jpg issue. When I went into my Booksmart data directory I saw that my original book folder had "disappeared". In fact, after a brief panic, I realized that the folder which had been called "Ecuador birds" had been renamed by Booksmart to "untitled". Also, a second folder had been created with the name of the new book I’d designated, but this folder was incomplete, only a few files had copied. By deleting this incomplete folder and renaming the "untitled" folder back to "Ecuador birds" (and all the associated book files within, ie., "settings" etc, with the proper titles) I was able to restart Booksmart and reopen my book. Whew. (Fortunately the book was backed up on another drive, but still…) Meantime, I was able to duplicate the book manually by manually copying the folder under another name ("Ecuador Birds" to "Ecuador full version") and renaming the associated files manually. Booksmart did open this copy but oddly, re-named the book and files again to "Ecuador Birds 2". ??? anyway now i do have two copies of my book, which is what I wanted, but good to know a patch for this is forthcoming. Other than that I’ve had no problems with 1.9.3 so far.
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Hello all, I made a book with the last version of the software, published it, got it back, was pretty happy but realised I needed to adjust a couple of things.
Downloaded the new release of Booksmart, 1.9.3, hoping that it might be a little more stable and less prone to the errors that have been amply described elsewhere in the forums.
What a mistake! Whilst it has no problems opening the original book file, it now crashes repeatedly when trying to paste from a Word doc. I was under the impression that this latest release was meant to handle such things a little better, but at the moment it seems like a big step backwards. Whilst the previous release was slower than paint drying, it was a lot more stable imho.
Revising my book has now become a struggle! I hope the patch is ready soon.
[ j ]
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Unfortunately this patch doesn’t solve my problem with the crashing!
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Howdy bullahorn & anyone else who experiences a crash, Please be sure to submit the crash report with your email address if/when BookSmart goes down. That way, when you contact customer support, we’ll be able to look up the specifics of your crash. Thanks for hanging in there,
Jeremy
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OK, I don’t give up easily. I started a new book and added files two at a time. The program seemed to be working well. Things really slowed down when I added the cover photo. The file size of that photo was over 7 megs. I think that’s been the problem—the photo files have been way too large. I’m going to reduce the file size of all the photos in my book and add them five or ten at a time and see how that works. Hopefully, this might help others who are still having a problem with slowness. So far, I am only working with six or seven images. The whole book will have ten times as many.
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Sixteen photos so far and it’s working beautifully. Seems like the answer is to watch the size of your images. Some of these are still large, 6 or 7 megs (filesize), but some that were over 9+ megs. must have thrown things over the top. I probably need to work on downsizing even more. I’ll keep posting my progress. —ALSO—this may be significant and I haven’t explored it fully, but it may be that placing images on the cover caused the huge slowdown for me. So far, I have left the cover images out and will put them in at the end. Thanks, Blurb! I’m really happy to pick this project back up again. Dan M.
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I cannot get the new software to mount. I get an error message that says disk image unrecognizable. I am on a mac- os leopard. this sucks.
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I find for best results, while creating and for the final print quality, one should resize the images before adding to the book. When doing an 8×10 size, I’ll resize all images to that size and then add them. Saving with a quality of 11 results in images between 1 and 2 megs and prevents BookSmart from having to handle images large images in memory. Try it.
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Howdy paigedestroy, Sorry about that error. Please try downloading BookSmart again in a few hours (our servers are swamped and it’s resulting, we think, in some incomplete downloads). The problem should be fixed shortly. Thank you for your patience, in the meantime. Best regards,
Jeremy
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You guys rock—it works!
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I upgraded and it ruined my 80-page book. I have two different page backgrounds depending on the content (text vs. photo). After the upgrade, every single one of my page backgrounds changed. I can manually change each page that has text back to its original background, but the background I have for the image pages will not change no matter what I do… it stays grey. I had planned on publishing my book (after 3 months of work) this week (in order to have it by Mother’s Day), but now I’m hosed. I contacted tech support, but they have not yet responded. Please send help or valium.
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Hi knichols1109, Customer Support will work to figure this out with you. Your book should not be ruined. I understand it’s vital to you that you be able to continue working without a problem, and we’ll get you back up and running as quickly as possible. Anyone else out there experience this? If so, please contact Customer Support so we can get an idea of the scope of this potential issue. Best regards and thank you for your patience,
Jeremy
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I hate the new software. It offers no new features I want and loading of images is 4 times as slow as the old software. I thought the purpose of this was to speed things up. I can’t manage the book I have already finished in this version of booksmart.I understand that this version does not handle large files as well as the old version did but I am not going to resize all my old book photos to make future changes and versions of this book Glad I saved the old software and backed up my books as I am going back to it immediately.
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I just upgraded and everything seemed to go okay. But the first thing I tried to do was drag and drop a photo from my computer onto a booksmart page (like I always do). It didn’t work. I had to go to "get photos" and upload the photo that way. I’ve never had to do this before. That does work but it’s not an improvement over the "drag and drop" feature. I’m using the Vista OS if that helps isolate the problem (gosh, I really dislike Vista!). As a sidenote, the collage pages are ‘interesting’. I’m a bit of a self-proclaimed collage expert and I can honestly say that I’ve never created a collage that looks anything like those templates. It would be awesome if we could lay one large background image down and place several photos ON TOP of it. Another layer of text on top of that would really make the template even more useful! Donna
http://2happy.typepad.com/scrappy
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hey, after downloading 1-9-4 I get an error message after completing installation. It says "booksmart is missing some files….". I use vista Business
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I’m having the same problem with Vista Home Premium. I simply cannot download the new version of Blurb – I keep getting error messages. Tried going to the "old" download button, but it keeps taking me to the new version. Sent several emails to Customer Support yesterday, but I kept getting bot messages that I needed to update my email address, so was very frustrated. I need to do another book, but if I can’t download the software to my computer, I’m really stuck. Hoping my next email to Customer Support will get a response (I did change my email addy yesterday afternoon). Not too happy here….. :(
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I try to enter text that wraps over columns. When I hit backspace at the start of the second column, trying to make it go back into the forst (since the formatting is screwed up) the entire program freezes up and crashes in a nasty way. This happens every time. So much for "fewer bugs, if any at all" as the email said!!!
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Wow, that does sound over-optimistic… There are still some issues, and this one sounds particularly nasty. I am sorry to hear that. Next time BookSmart fails, please fill out a crash report and then contact Customer Service to let themknow you have done so. They might be able to get things running a bit better for you. Best regards and thank you for your patience,
Jeremy
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Ok, I’m a newbie to blurb, just did my first book. LOVED IT. That said, I just upgraded to 1.9.4 and in the first 2 minutes I have 3 very disturbing kinks. 1. the page layout window is all messed up, it isn’t displaying properly, the gray areas aren’t showing right or something. 2. I went to explore in the backgrounds and I don’t have a color swatch, and can only choose colors through RGB. 3. When I’m in a drop down menu, or whatever, my selection goes white and disappears. This all blows! I really want to start my next book like NOW. And I won’t until things are normal. I wish I could go back to the last version I had. But I just did a book about my dog, and I wanted to upload to see the new dog backgrounds. Now I’m ready to do my Wedding album (it’s only been 16 years since my wedding, so I figure it’s about time.) Anyone else having these problems??? Holly
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Hello: I have a new computer and just downloaded the latest version of Booksmart. Trouble is, it won’t import my saved books. They are saved in a Booksmart backup file with the .book but I keep getting an error message. What should I be doing? The load book logo is greyed out.
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Update to my previous post: I just uploaded 1.9.4 to my laptop. This was a new install, as I had not used booksmart on my laptop yet. So I did a new install, and it all seems fine…...so far. Maybe the problems are only on the reinstall??? Holly
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I just updated Booksmart on one XP computer running IE 7. The response time was absolutely awful. So I tried it on my other computer with more disk space. Again, the response time was terrible, I mean TERRIBLE! I tried to drag a picture into the cover and it totally locked up. That’s as far as I got. Do we need parallel processors to run this thing? I have never seen it work well and now it makes everything on my computers unusable until I get rid of it. It looked like a neat product but it certainly doesn’t work on my machines. Plus, you have to be connected to the Internet to work with it. I have a wireless and a cable connection but sometimes I am a place where I can’t connect. I am very discouraged by this and will try something else. I had horrible response with the previous version also and hoped that the new one would fix it. No such luck. Margaret
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Margeret, you say… Plus, you have to be connected to the Internet to work with it You don’t! I quite happily use BookSmart on my laptop when I am not connected to the internet. Your book is stored on your PC/Mac whilst you are working on it, you only need an internet connection wen you come to upload it to the Blurb server and publish it. I (and others) are lucky enough to have no response problems. It may be the configuration or characteristics of your machine. I would duggest you raise a Technical Support Request that way Blurb staff can communicate with you more directly, determine the likely causes and help you overcome this problem. You’ll find the link under the Help menu, or simply click here…. http://www.blurb.com/help/technical_support Plus have you checked that your machine meets Blurb’s recommended minimum specifications? If you go to Search FAQs and search for System Requirements you’ll find those. ........Tony
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I think Blurb should make the old copies of booksmart available to people that want it. I was fortunate enough to be a software packrat because I saved my previous version of booksmart
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Just loaded 1.9.4 and tried to continue building my current book. WOW, what problems. My book was nearly finished and just need a few tweaks. This version made it very painfull, and I had to revert to 1.9.2 to finish the book. 1. Background color did not propagate (copy?) to the cover. 2. Images that were sized to leave a background color around them did not exhibit the same page color as in version 1.9.2. The background color was missing on both left and right sides of the image. 3. Text that flows across 2 pages in version 1.9.2 failed to do so in 1.9.4 The problems were sever enough that I uninstalled 1.9.4 and reinstalled 1.9.2 so I could finish my book Does anyone else have similar problems? Bob
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I have Win XP P4 3.0 GHZ 4 gigs of RAM and the new Booksmart Still is unusuable but the old clunky 1.9.2 does let me work. I havent heard from blurb in months on several tech issues.
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Found this topic trying to search for a way to add a proxy. From other person who mentioned "proxy" in here I assume there is no way to configure one yet? Will be a winner for sure once this functionality is added.
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Howdy all, Just checking in about some of these 1.9.4 issues. Thanks to to all who have taken the time to post. First, the page background color issue seems to simply be Edit Mode showing empty (or the unused portions of) image containers as grey. This was an attempt at an improvement, and the jury is out as to whether it makes things easier. Either way, Preview Mode should still show you the true color as it displays your book exactly how it will print. Second, regarding any delay with images drawing to the screen in your book after upgrading: After upgrading, your images are "cached" anew upon opening the book for the first time in the new software. That means the program is busy building the various versions of the images that it uses to display your book. Image caches are generated only when the page that image is on is visited. So, scrolling through your book for the first time after upgrading can indeed take a while. However, those image caches are saved, so opening the same book tomorrow in the new software should be significantly faster, and your project should run normally after this initial delay. Third, some kind of proxy configuration option, if doable, would indeed be awesome. This is something I try hound of engineers with every week, and I’ll keep it up. Finally, Customer Support has been able to help improve performance and solve installation issues for many folks who experienced initial hiccups with v1.9.4. It’s still got areas that obviously need improvement, but if your graphics card is less than 5 years old or so, BookSmart Beta should be more usable for most authors. So if you still need some assistance, please don’t throw up your hands and chalk it up to bad release. Instead, please give Customer Support a shout by clicking here and filling out the form. Best regards and keep on Blurbin’,
Jeremy
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