The page layout consists of one or more placeholders for photos and possibly text boxes and other objects that are to be displayed on the page. You can edit the position, size and alignment of these placeholders. You can (and should) use all these commands even when the placeholders contain photos or text. You can add new placeholders using the "New photo" or "New text box" icons on the toolbar. There is more on this later under the corresponding headings "Adding and editing photos in the page layout" and "Adding and editing texts".
Click on "Page Layouts" in the selection area. There are usually two selection fields in the selection options for page layouts. The page layouts are divided into categories to give you a better overview and to make it easier for you to retain a universal page layout style in your photo product.
| Choose from various pre-sorted page layout categories in an expandable list: | |
| Show all... | Shows all the available page layouts. |
| Favourites | You can save a highlighted page layout as a favourite via the dropdown menu (right mouse click). You can then find it under the "Favourites" heading. |
| Trash | You can place a highlighted page layout in Trash via the dropdown menu (right mouse click). You can decide at a later stage whether you want to restore it or delete it once and for all. |
| Angled | Page layouts with at least one angled (slightly rotated) photo placeholder. Partially overlapping at times, often looks like photos that have been "thrown on".    |
| High coverage | Large photos, only a small amount of page background visible. Usually with the same-sized gap to the margin and between the photos.    |
| Irregular | Photos arranged loosely across the page, lots of background of the page visible.   |
| Full coverage | Borderless and with no gap between the photos, no page background visible.   |
| Overlapping | Photos in straight alignment that overlap partially or fully.   |
| My layouts | Shows the page layouts that you have created and saved yourself. It will not appear if you have not yet saved any of your own page layouts for this photobook format. |
| Other | This contains page layouts that have not yet been allocated to any category. You can find these layouts in this category. |
For other products, e.g. posters, canvases and greeting cards, the layouts are characterised according to "portrait format" and "landscape format". For calendars, the page layouts in the layout selection have been divided into categories according to calendar type and position. Page layouts are not always available for the corresponding number of images in a category. In this case, the category is not displayed in the list. You must then choose a different number of images per page.
In the second selection field, set the number of photos you want to limit the page layouts to in the preview display. If you double-click on the thumbnail, the page layout is applied to both the pages shown; if you only want to apply it to one page, drag it to the appropriate page by holding down the left mouse button. Or use the buttons directly below the layout previews.
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A placeholder is where you add an image (usually a photo). It appears as a semi-transparent icon in the workspace until a photo has been added.
You can highlight a placeholder by clicking on it once. You can highlight several placeholders using a selection frame that you drag with the mouse. Unfortunately, this "rubber band" function for highlighting does not work if the placeholders (or text boxes) to be highlighted have your own photo as a background image, as the background photo is also highlighted. You can highlight additional frames by holding down the "Ctrl" key and clicking on them one after the other with the mouse. It is also possible to unhighlight a frame using the same method. Simply click on the highlighted frame while holding down the "Ctrl" key, to stop it being highlighted. It is also possible to scale, rotate, position and delete several placeholders at the same time by first highlighting them.
If you highlight a placeholder, an editing frame will appear around it in the form of a clear surrounding line. The frame is then "active".
The editing frame has several handles: corner handles in the corners of the editing frame and side handles in the middle of the frame sides. You can scale the size of the frame using the corner handles and the side handles. The corner handles scale the placeholder evenly, the aspect ratio stays the same. The side handles only scale the placeholder in one direction (width or height). If the object grid is activated ("Settings" ? "Editor" in the toolbar), the edge of the placeholder snaps onto the other placeholders horizontally and vertically.
Using the rotation handle that is located just inside the frame, you can rotate this frame freely around its central point by holding down the mouse key. To rotate the frame by 90 degrees in either direction, use the "Rotate object anti-clockwise" and "Rotate object clockwise" tools, which can be found on the toolbar.
To move a placeholder, position the mouse point directly above the editing frame until it changes into a cross with arrows, and then drag the frame to the desired position by holding down the left mouse button. If the "intelligent reference lines" are enabled (magnet icon in "Layout" in the toolbar), then the placeholder will snap horizontally and vertically onto other objects on the page. Or you can use the arrow keys on your keyboard. You can move the highlighted frame gradually by pressing an arrow key in the corresponding direction repeatedly or holding it down.
The "Position frames" dialogue gives you absolute control over the position, rotation, size and zoom factor of your content. You can select several placeholders and then apply the same values to them. The dialogue contains three tabs, "Position objects", "Change rotation" and "Change object sizes". The "Keep ..." option is turned on by default.
With these alignment options, you can place photos and text boxes in the page layout to the nearest millimetre. With the option "Move Uniformly" the selected object is moved by the values below. If multiple objects are selected simultaneously, the objects' distance to one another does not change. The page width and page height of the total page layout area, or both (for "Move uniformly"), are given as reference points for verticals and horizontals respectively. Therefore, the page width of photobooks applies to the whole double page.
| The possible alignments are: | ||||
| Previous/initial situation (the left object selected first): |
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| "Upper horizontal alignment" |  |
"Left vertical alignment" |  |
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| "Align the middle point to a horizontal line" |  |
"Align the middle point to a vertical line" |  |
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| "Lower horizontal alignment" |  |
"Right vertical alignment" |  |
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Centre, Right, Left, Upper and Lower all refer to the respective placeholders. Horizontal and vertical relate to the page layout workspace. For the central point options, there is the additional option of centring the placeholder to the middle of the page.
Caution: Do not drag images or text beyond the visible area of the editing window. Once you lift a highlighted image, you cannot drag it back again. It is automatically removed from your order as soon as it is outside the workspace.
The option "Set rotation" rotates the objects at the specified angle. The rotation refers to the work area of the editor. If you have selected multiple objects, they will all rotate at the same angle. The option "Rotate photos" rotates the objects relative to the specified angle, even if they were already rotated. If the photo has already been rotated, the new rotation is added to the existing rotation. You can also use this command to rotate text boxes.
The size of the object is given in centimetres for height and width or the object is scaled by a percentage. The same applies to text boxes, but without changing the font size.
If several frames have been highlighted at the same time, the command "Align and resize frame" is available in the dropdown menu. More commands are expanded, which you can use to align the highlighted photos with the right or left margin or align the upper or lower edges. The rotation or size of the photos can also be adjusted. You will also find the same commands as icons in the "Layout" toolbar.
The frames can overlap each other partially. For this reason, the "Move object one level forward" and "Move object one level back" buttons are available in the "Layout" toolbar. This way you can control the order in which the photos lay on top of each other. This is faster with keyboard shortcuts. "Alt" + "+" moves the active frame further forwards, "Alt" + "-" moves it further backwards.
You can delete a placeholder from the page layout by highlighting it and then clicking either on the "Delete" icon in the toolbar or on the "Del" key on the keyboard.
If you have changed a page layout according to your own settings or created a new page layout, you can save it and use it on other pages. To do this, use the "Save layout" command on the toolbar. The default setting is for the page layout of the left-hand double page to be saved; if you want to save the page layout of the right-hand page, highlight a placeholder on this page beforehand. A thumbnail of the page layout will then appear in the page layout selection area, marked with an asterisk.
Activate "Photos & Videos" in the selection area. The photos contained in the currently selected directory are displayed in the object view as thumbnails. The name of the open directory is displayed on the button above the photo thumbnails. If the path is too long, you can see it in full in the tool tip. If you have not opened the correct directory, click on this button and choose the desired directory.
To add a photo to the page layout, drag it from the selection area to the desired placeholder in the workspace by holding down the left mouse button. It will then latch onto the placeholder.
There are two different options here:
The photo adjusts to the placeholder. The placeholder stays as it is and the photo is adjusted in terms of either height or width, depending on how the aspect ratios of the photo and the frame fit best.
Any parts of the photo protruding beyond the frame are no longer visible, but you can scale the height and width of the layout frame and specify the image detail within the frame using "Reduce Image"/"Enlarge Image".
The placeholder adjusts to the photo. The photo can be seen in its entirety, and the placeholder adjusts to the longest side of the photo. You can scale the placeholder here too. If you scale the placeholder with the corner handles, it will keep its aspect ratio and the photo will be automatically scaled. If you only enlarge the width or height of the placeholder, any parts of the photo protruding beyond the frame will no longer be visible.If you enlarge the placeholder, the photo is scaled too, but it is not scaled if you reduce the placeholder, and you have to reduce it manually within the frame using "Reduce Image"/"Enlarge Image".
You can set this property of the placeholder for all photos to be added in the Settings on the menu bar. See the chapter "Settings". Alternatively, you can drag your photo or photos to an empty space on the page or even to a completely empty page (delete the suggested placeholder beforehand) and then position them according to your own ideas.
The "Image as background on both pages," "Image as background left," "Image as background right," and "Add image on all inside pages" insert icons are provided below the thumbnails of the photos.
These tools enable you to use the currently selected image as the background for a complete double page spread, the right or left page or on all double pages of your photobook. Unlike the "standard" backgrounds, you can edit your own photo backgrounds via the photoshow.
You can also drag a photo from one placeholder to another by holding down the mouse button. If there is already a photo in the other frame, the photos are swapped.
You can delete a photo from the workspace by highlighting it (clicking on it) and then clicking the "Delete" button on the toolbar. Alternatively you can simply click the "Del" key on your keyboard. If you have applied a template or a frame to the photo, the template/frame is removed the first time you click delete, the photo is removed the second time and the photo placeholder is removed the third time. You can recognise highlighted photos by the highlighted border around the photo. To highlight several consecutive photos at the same time, drag a selection frame around the photos to be highlighted using the mouse, or highlight the first photo to be deleted and, holding down the shift key on the keyboard, highlight the last photo to be deleted. You can highlight (or unhighlight) several non-consecutive photos by holding down the "Ctrl" key and clicking on each photo.