To continue the review I’ll talk about the SmileBooks book building software in a bit more detail. The final piece of the review should come tomorrow since the missed delivery DHL slip on my door today was for the book.
As I mentioned in the first part of the review, the SmileBooks software is a fairly simple and approachable looking program. While that is true there is a lot here and I want to discuss my findings about the interface and usage of the program.
But first, some program updates
Interestingly, as I just installed the photo book creation software on my laptop now to continue working on this review (I had started this process on my desktop) I notice that the software has been updated. A number of new features and changes are apparent.
First, all the different book types on the web site are now available in the program and the selection screen has four tabs separating the different book types. Additionally it can now access a Flickr account to get photos for the book. I tested this and found it works quite quickly and painlessly. The options menus and overall level of customization of the interface have been significantly advanced, adding many useful features. It even spell-checks for you now!
Clipart has been added as well as image masks and unlike Black River Imaging’s software the mask browser (which works exactly like the layout browser) is quite clear about what each mask will do when applied to your images. They have also added a button to bring you to a new window which allows you to download more masks, clipart and background designs
One of the most important changes for me is a feature I did not see in the previous version of the program. There is now a tool for numbering pages automatically. When creating my big photo book this is something I know I will want to do but I had not been looking forward to doing it all manually. Fortunately the tool is easy to use and can be configured flexibly and updates automatically as you add or rearrange pages. Unfortunately it seems to forget which page you tell it to start the numbering on when you reopen a saved project.
Things that could be improved
To design most pages in my test book I liked to start with the existing page layouts available for the number of photos I wanted on a page. From there I needed to make small changes to size or positioning based on what I wanted from it. There are enough well thought out layouts to cover a lot of what I wanted to do when creating the book, however I did find there needs to be some way to rotate or flip the entire page layout quickly and easily. If a layout has a large image with a text box at the bottom but you want that text box at the top you have to do the rearranging manually.
There are some other features I’d like to see added such as an easy way to enter precise dimensions for a new image box or text box, as well as a way to specify placement on the page and alignment to other objects much like what Illustrator offers. Another feature I doubt I’d ever use but expect others might is one I’ve seen offered by some of the other bookmaking services; various themes which affect the image layouts, text style and page background art.
Finally, the software has a built in updating function however it only appears to update prices because when I told it to update on my desktop computer it did not actually update the program itself to add the new features. I found that a bit misleading and I had to download the new installer and install the program again to update my desktop computer.
Software conclusions
If it sounds like I have a lot of complaints about the software, the truth is I don’t. While there are things that could be improved I believe that’s probably always the case with any program. The software remains very easy to use and approachable with good flexibility and capability. Many of the changes I suggest above could be considered icing on an already tasty cake.
Choose any of the following links to see the other parts of the SmileBooks review:
Part 1: Introduction to SmileBooks and the book creation software.
Part 2.5: Images showing various parts of the SmileBooks software.
Part 3: Impressions of the book’s construction and image quality.
Did you get the day one coupon code/clue for 50% off. I missed day one and can’t find it anywhere. Thanks! My email is susanharrison31@hotmail.com
I had a previous career in desktop publishing so I would like to think that I have more experience than most when creating a book. I have created a 58 page book using the smilebooks software. I had a few occasions when I opened the document and random images had dropped out of the book. Really weird. This week I was editing final text to get ready for print and I moved my working folder to my computer desktop. The next time I opened the file, ALL THE IMAGES HAD DROPPED FROM MY DOCUMENT. I am livid. Sure I still have the images in a file folder, but how could this happen. There isn’t even a feature to possibly do this on purpose! Maybe this software is fine for a 10 page coffee book. Of course I have an older version of the file, but I really worked hard on tweaking the design and editing text on the final copy. Furthermore, since you can’t even print a pdf file, I was not allowed to print I copy that would have been helpful in redoing the book. I would not reccomend this software to anyone.
[...] of the SmileBooks review: Part 1: Introduction to SmileBooks and the book creation software. Part 2: Additional comments about the book creation software. Part 3: Impressions of the book’s construction and image quality. (Coming [...]