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Viovio Bookmaker

Using the Viovio Book Machine to create photo books

Creating a Photo Book using Viovio's Book Machine is Easy

Viovio designed this process to allow you to create the final output you desire from your gallery images. This step by step instruction guide assumes you are creating your book from gallery images and not a PDF. Please see the PDF Upload Wizard if you wish to upload a complete PDF document.

First, you should be aware of what our Book Machine does well. There are two ideal use cases:
  • Uploading individual pages of layouts created using Photo Book Software
  • Creating a book out of a lot of images, and wanting some (or all) of your favorite images to be full bleed, and the others to appear as multiple images per page.

If you are interested in an advanced Drag and Drop interface, try our Book Designer.

So, let's get started!!

First Create Your Photo Gallery and Add Pictures

After you register, click "Upload Photos" under the yellow Photos tab. After you upload your images you can arrange the images in any order you like by using the Image Order link.

Next, Click Through Viovio's Product Builder

After your gallery is set up exactly as you would like, you are ready to create your photo book. Browse to the gallery you wish to order as a book, and select the "ImageOrder Photo Book" link. This will place you in the Product Builder "Step 1 : Book Machine Options". Here you will make selections for your Book Size, Layout, and other interior options.

Book Size:
  • There are many sizes from which to select. Just use the drop down arrow to the right of the "Book Size" field to select the final output size you prefer. You can come back and change your size if you wish to try several selections.

Layout: Several options are available with the layout.
  • Image Per Page option: you set the number of images that display on each page. The most exciting option here is the "Gallery Image Order" option. This feature allows each page to have an independent number of images. For example if you want to layout one image on page 1, 5 images on page 2, and 2 images on page 3. You would simply number your images in your gallery as 1.1, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 3.1, 3.2, etc. See the green numbering on this picture to see the final result.
  • Full Bleed option: If you want your images to full bleed to the edges select the check box, if not just leave it blank.
  • Captions option: You have 3 options here (No, Smart, or All). Select Smart Captions if you would like the titles you keyed to print below your images but don't want the camera image titles to print (ex: DSCN0415). Titles are printed below each image (30 characters or less).
  • Full Bleed Favorites option: If you set any images as a Favorite in the Image Order area and you want it to print as full bleed in your book select the check box.

Options:
  • Auto Crop select if you would like Viovio's Book Machine to crop images that have an aspect ratio larger than the page. The aspect ratio is the width of an image divided by the height of the image.
  • Print Chapter Pages is used if you have sub galleries and would like the title of the sub gallery to print within the book.
  • Print Detailed Image Pages is used if you want descriptions to display below an image and you want the image to appear on a page by itself. Descriptions are printed below each image (200 characters or less)

Cover Image: Select the check box if you would like the cover image to display within your book.

Click the NEXT button when you are ready for the Product Builder to build your book. Please allow the Product Builder to process through. You will receive status updates keeping you informed as to where in the process the Product Builder is at each step. We convert your images to a press ready PDF and to a low-resolution preview.

Preview your book! You want to verify that the pages, book dimensions, interior layout, binding and price are all correct. If you want to make changes, simply click the RECREATE BOOK" button and make your changes. Once the interior looks good, click the "CREATE COVER NEXT" button.

Proceed to Step 2 of the Product Builder to create your cover and complete your product.

Comments

Reply to this comment

by shelley, Fri 28 of Nov, 2008 (06:02 UTC)
I have used Smilebox.com to create and save scrapbook pages in jpg format. Does anyone know if I can use them to make a photobook? I am new to this and I am a bit confused!

Thank you!!!


Reply to this comment

Re:

by connie, Wed 03 of Dec, 2008 (20:54 UTC)
Shelley, Viovio accepts .jpg files. Just upload to your account.
The easiest thing to do would be to login
select "create a gallery" under the photos column
title the gallery
Click the SAVE GALLERY button
click the UPLOAD PICTURES link
and upload your pictures from your computer

After you get the images from your computer to viovio you are ready to create the book.

The easiest way to create the book is to
Select the "create a product" option under the products column
Then select the PHOTO BOOK DESIGNER button
Select "I Understand, Let's get started" button
Title your book
Select the ratio (square, portrait, landscape)
Click the CREATE button

Reply to this comment

by melissa owston, Wed 14 of May, 2008 (21:54 UTC)
am trying to put together a scrapbook/yearbook with quite a lot of text and a few photos on each page. is this possible here
Reply to this comment

Re:

by Jane, Wed 14 of May, 2008 (22:03 UTC)
Are you creating your own pages, or wanting to use Viovio's bookmaker. If you are a creating your own pages, then they can look anyway you choose to design them.
Reply to this comment

Scrapbooker Here Needs Info

by Iona Barin, Tue 18 of Mar, 2008 (17:37 UTC)
I am looking at this service for making books out of my digital
scrapbook pages. I use a software called Scrapbook Max to design
my pages. When I publish my pages, they are saved as a jpeg file.
I've been reading here and no one seems to be doing jpeg files. Is
that no possible here?
Reply to this comment

Re: Scrapbooker Here Needs Info

by Wags, Fri 21 of Mar, 2008 (16:43 UTC)
Oh yeah you can definitely upload your completed pages as a jpeg file. Only thing I would suggest is to check the file size. For some reason pages from folks using Scrapbook Max! seem to generate huge files that are like 24x24 instead of 12x12.
Reply to this comment

Re: Scrapbooker Here Needs Info

by Cathy, Wed 19 of Mar, 2008 (14:36 UTC)
You can absolutely use jpeg files. You just need to make sure that your pages are the correct proportion for the book size you select. You just upload your jpegs to your gallery, then follow the steps to create your book this page is probably helpful.

You can build/generate a book without purchasing, so you may want to upload a few pages and see how it goes to try out the process first. Good luck!
Reply to this comment

Past User Concerns

by Phil, Wed 14 of Nov, 2007 (20:24 UTC)
I ordered a softcover book about 2 years ago at a time when the online bookmaker had a "beta" feel to it. While I was generally pleased with the look and feel of the product, I was wondering if any improvements have been made to the process. My concerns at the time were:
Gallery management was confusing- adding/deleting/rearranging images.
Layout even more so- editing interior pages already created was a nightmare; adding a new image not already in the gallery meant backing out how many? pages in the process to "edit" the gallery, and then finding your way back to the page in process- almost impossible!
Changing the format of an interior page once created was also difficult.
Just finding an interior page to edit was difficult because the internal page numbering was hard to link to a specific page.
Adding a text-only page(such as a chapter page)-impossible.
You couldn't seem to really preview the work until you advanced the book almost to the order stage and then could "download" the .pdf "preview". Backing out of this step- again, almost impossible.
Image editing using the page photo editor-also very cumbersome- best to do all the cropping, rotating, resizing outside the software.

I was creating a catalogue with almost 300 images with captions at the time. Editing this "on the fly" was hard and kept me from ordering again.
Of course, these concerns could be eliminated using a desktop page creator, but I'm interested in using the online bookmaker again.
All comments or tips on the current process would be most welcome.
Reply to this comment

Confused about Bookmaker

by , Wed 03 of Oct, 2007 (04:31 UTC)
I have been looking for an affordable book printing company with an easy
interface. Vivio is a very affordable book printing company, but the book building interface is confusing.
Reply to this comment

Re: Confused about Bookmaker

by Cathy, Mon 25 of Jun, 2007 (21:57 UTC)
Lyndsey — I realize it doesn't help you for the book that has the errors, but I've found it essential to review the low res pdf with facing pages turned on (View > Page Layout > Facing). I did a quick look through your book with this method and spotted the duplicate pages right away. Another set of eyes always helps as well. wink As for using Powerpoint as a layout program, it's actually not as bad as you might think. I believe they recommend using it because most people have it and are familiar with it already. By all means if you've got inDesign or Quark or another layout program, use it. I've found that creating each page individually in Photoshop is a file management nightmare for me since I don't necessarily know which order pages are going to end up in.