tfrankland's Posts

I had the same set of tracking messages as you. I was completing an Order Support Request to Blurb when I got an e-mail from my niece in Australia to say the book just arrived! Swiss Post tracking never got past the Left Transit Country message.

My Left Transit Country was on 4th September, the book arrived on the 11th if that is any help.

Make sure you report this to Blurb, they obviously have a problem with Swiss Post and some more evidence may well help their case. http://www.blurb.com/help/order_support

......Tony

.......Tony

There isn’t a single template that allows you to do this, it is a matter of choosing, for two facing pages, a template for each that has a photo container/box that goes right up to the gutter.

Go to Search FAQs and search for "two page spread" that FAQ will show you how to position your photo on each page to get the effect you want.

There are also a lot of existing threads in the forums that offer advice and alternative approaches. Again search for "two page spread".

........Tony

For Windows the photos are saved in My Documents/BookSmartData/bookname/Library.

But you won’t recognise any of the names! BookSmart, when it imports a photo, creates three copies of it and gives them all an unrecognisable name not related to your original name.One copy is the full size original, one a thumbnail for use in the My Imported Photos panel and finally a low quality copy for use in displaying your pages. That is low quality to keep the size down and try and keep BookSmart responsive. The full size original is what will be used and uploaded when you come to publish your book.

I gather on a Mac (not through personal experience) that the equivalent BookSmartData directory is Macintosh HD>Users>”users”>Library>Application Support>BookSmartData/.

You will find differebnt views on size of book versus responsiveness.

My own experience, for my 146 page book, is a little mixed. The first half of the book is primarily photographs, the second half is very text heavy withh text flowing across many pages and columns. I have noticed no real slowdown making changes to the first half as the book grew, but a noticeable slowdown when making changes to text in the second half.

.....Tony

Adobe’s Lightroom provides that facility as well. That is the photo processing app I use 90% of the time.

........Tony

There is a FAQ on this….....

http://blurb.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/blurb.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=265

.........Tony

I fit in your if not….. cateory, as I’m not Blurb staff, but I can answer one question and give an opinion on another.

There is a FAQ that details paper stock….....

http://blurb.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/blurb.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=69

Dark photos are not always printer problems, a badly calibrated monitor or especially a monitor with the brightness turned up high can give a false impression as to the lightness (or darkness) of the original photo thus raising expectations that will not be met when you get the book back. I’ve had no problems with dark photos.

.........Tony

And me! With the option of having the second monitor showing Preview Book mode.

..........Tony

Thanks Jeremy,

I’ll go ahead and install it then.

......Tony

The latest release runs fine for by far the majority of users, but as you can see from this post there are some having problems. From what I have read on previous posts it could be a clash between BookSmart and your PC configuration (a common cause is not having the latest release of Java, for instance) and it is likely that Blurb staff can help you resolve this problem. Why don’t you give that a try, their customer support is very good.

These forums are primarily for user to user communications sharing experiences, ideas, frustrations, etc. Though they are monitored by Blurb staff they are not the most effective way of getting them to give you one-to-one help with a technical problem.

Go to Search FAQs and you will see a heading of EMAIL SUPPORT on the RHS, under that you will see Technical Suppport.

.......Tony

If you want Blurb staff to look into this issue you need to raise a Technical Support Request, the forums are primarly meant to facilitate exchange of help and ideas between Blub users, though the staff do monitor the posts.

Go to Search FAQs and you will see a heading of EMAIL SUPPORT on the RHS, under that you will see Technical Suppport. Their customer support is pretty good.

........Tony

cjallen1 wrote…I’ve just joined blurb and can’t download the software,I’ve tried my pc and laptop,firefox and IE

You should contact Blurb technical support who will give one-to-one help rather than hoping for a resolution through these forums, there is not enough information in your post for members to try and help you.

Go to Search FAQs and you will see a heading of EMAIL SUPPORT on the RHS, under that you will see Technical Suppport.

...........Tony

Luckily this is nice and easy.

Go the the File menu and you will see Save a Copy As

I did two variants of my last book and this approach worked just fine.

.......Tony