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tfrankland's Posts

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Issue: jpeg artifacts in book preview
BookSmart

Giovanni,

in Edit and Preview modes BookSmart uses a low resolution copy of your photos to try and keep response times reasonable.

When you come to publish your book it will upload the original high resolution files you imported and use those for printing the book

........Tony

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Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 22, 2008 3:38am PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Tracking my book... to AUSTRALIA
Ordering and Shipping

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

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 21, 2008 11:41pm PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Merging Two Books
Tips and Tricks

Sorry Ezra, there have been a number of posts asking this question and neither forum members or Blurb staff have suggested a solution.

.........Tony

 

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 21, 2008 11:25pm PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Crossing over the page break with a photo? How do you do it?
Book Design and Imaging

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

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 21, 2008 12:20am PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
New Hardcover plus Dust Jacket
Ordering and Shipping

Sorry Don, the answer is no!

There have been a few other threads on this topic and in one Blurb confirmed that it is not something they offer

I…...Tony

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 20, 2008 12:54am PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Where are images saved?
BookSmart

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

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 20, 2008 12:33am PDT
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tfrankland
 
so booksmart does not support other languages?
BookSmart

I’m not surre whether this previous thread will help…..

http://forums.blurb.com/forums/1/topics/576

......Tony

 

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 20, 2008 12:18am PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Dual Monitor / Dual Screen Support
BookSmart

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

........Tony

 

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 20, 2008 12:13am PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Blurb: response to my complaint, pictures are too dark!
Book Design and Imaging

It may be of use to others to understand the reasons that Milisa gave, any chance you could share them?

.......Tony

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 19, 2008 10:00am PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Gray Scale Images OK ?
BookSmart

There is a FAQ on this….....

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

.........Tony

 

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 19, 2008 12:10am PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Hard drive change
BookSmart

I can’t be of any help on this one Steve, I’m in the middle of a book and didn’t want to update my working copy of BookSmart whilst I was still doing that,  so I’m still on 1.9.5

I have the later versions installed, but since my early testing of 1.9.6 & 7 i have not used those versions in anger.

However with 1.9.4 I was having those freezing issues after I had pasted about 30 pages of Word text into the book. On advice from Blurb I re-did that paste with BookSmart’s Edit…....Paste Plain Text and the problem went away. But I did lose all my formatting and it took quite a few hours to re-do that in BookSmart. As you say, a pain!

Sorry I can’t be of more help.

........Tony

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 18, 2008 12:04pm PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Paper Stock
Book Printing

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

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 18, 2008 2:05am PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Hard drive change
BookSmart

Steve,

I move my books regularly back and forth between my desktop and my laptop, using the latter when away from home.

I always use BookSMart’s File….Backup/Export Book and Import Book and do them one at a time. I’ve never had any problems that way.

You could probably get away with copying the BookSmartData directory, but I feel more comfortable using the BookSmart facility. Then I’ve got someone else to blame if something else goes wrong :-)

Can’t help with your last question.

........Tony

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 18, 2008 1:50am PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Dual Monitor / Dual Screen Support
BookSmart

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

..........Tony

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 18, 2008 1:43am PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
how about ability for a ruler or guide lines?
Tips and Tricks

No ruler tool I’m afraid.

........Tony

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 18, 2008 1:40am PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Patch for new version of BookSmart
BookSmart

Thanks Jeremy,

I’ll go ahead and install it then.

......Tony

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 17, 2008 2:19pm PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Patch for new version of BookSmart
BookSmart

Janys,

they slipped in 1.9.8 without telling us! If you download BookSmart from the home page that is the version you get. I haven’t installed it though, I’d like to know what fixes are in it before I do.

........Tony

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 17, 2008 2:18pm PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Patch for new version of BookSmart
BookSmart

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

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 17, 2008 2:16pm PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Patch for new version of BookSmart
BookSmart

John-Mark,

Pagination works for me! But what I did notice is that although the page numbers in the footers of my pages now start at 1 where I requested (and previous pages the page number is blank) the numbers below the page thumbnails in the strip along the bottom of the BookSmart window still start at 1. I was a bit miffed to start with but then realised that if that wasn’t the case I wouldn’t know how many pages were in my book and I couldn’t work out the cost.

Double check the page numbers in your footers (or headers if you have requested the page numbers there).

.......Tony

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 17, 2008 1:44pm PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Patch for new version of BookSmart
BookSmart

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

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 17, 2008 1:41pm PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Patch for new version of BookSmart
BookSmart

Jenny, no answer for you I’m afraid, but two suggestions in this post…

http://forums.blurb.com/forums/1/topics/3573

.........Tony
 

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 17, 2008 1:40pm PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Patch for new version of BookSmart
BookSmart

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

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 17, 2008 1:36pm PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
Using booksmart with a mac
BookSmart

I can’t answer for the Mac related performance parts of your question, as I run Windows, but I can help with a couple of bits.

There is no way using BookSmart that you can merge two books into one, so splitting up the work into phases with the intention of combining them later (if I understood you right) would not be a practical approach.

You cannot get a PDF copy of the finished book. You can, if you have a PDF Writer on your PC, create a PDF from the draft you are working on, though it will have a Blurb watermark diagonally across the page (For Proofing Only – Printed via Blurb.com) O.K. for getting people to proof your work-in-progress but not for much else.

........Tony

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 17, 2008 8:02am PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
saving same book under another file name
BookSmart

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

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 17, 2008 7:50am PDT
Permalink
tfrankland
 
BookSmart 1.8 Crashes repeatedly on my MAC Book PRO (Beta was better)
BookSmart

No apologies needed! I can understand your frustration.

Posted by
tfrankland
Sep 17, 2008 5:14am PDT
Permalink
tfrankland

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