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If you are going to use a photographer have them call us. They can perform the steps on this page for you. Collect photos and money Here are some collection TIPS specific to reunions. Organize Content and Mail to Us See Easy Steps Below We lay out your book and mail you a copy. Once approved we print the final run. |
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GET YOUR CONTENT READY IN 2 EASY STEPS! |
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Step 1 DOWNLOAD TEMPLATES FILE (Download Problems?) Step 2 DOWNLOAD TEXT FILE |
Just download these 2 files and follow the instructions. Everything you need to prepare your books is right here! |
Frequently Asked Questions I want to make books. What is the next step? How do I get started? If you have any questions or plan on using a professional photographer the first thing you should do is call us. Otherwise, you can get started by following the instructions on this page. Simply follow the 2 steps about organizing your content and send it to us. Everything you need to prepare your books is on this page. I would like to use the spreadsheet method. Is there a spreadsheet template I can download? Click Here for a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet download you can use. How long will it take me to organize the content? An average length book of around 20 pages should require less than 2 hours of your time to fill out our easy templates. Compare this to the dozens of hours you could spend using other processes such as pasting up grid sheets or learning software. Does Memorybooklets.com send a photographer to our event to take the photos? That is completely up to you. We can send a local photographer or you can choose your own but they will obviously only do the job if they are able to sell photography related products to your members so make sure that is something you want to offer. You always have the option to shoot your own photos and buy the books straight from us. Who performs steps 1-2-3 shown above? If we use a photographer what are the costs? You or your photographer will complete the steps. It is completely up to you. If you buy the books straight from us you can use the prices on this website. If you use a photographer they can build the price of our books into the photography prices charged to your members and include the books as part of the package. You can check prices with the photographer of your choice or call us and we will have a photographer contact you. My church wants to shoot our own photos. How do I get my church members to "pay" for a directory? Explain to your members that they pay for the directory whether they buy it directly or have the price built into the photo packages that they buy. If your members would rather not buy photo packages they may prefer to buy the directories directly. You could charge a "sitting fee", have a special donation collection, charge a few dollars more than we charge and tell the members that a portion of the directory proceeds are being donated to the church, etc... Our directory prices are so low that the church may choose to buy the directories and just hand them out to the members treating the directories as any other church expense. What is the best way to send photos to Memorybooklets.com? The easiest and best way to send photos is on CD. Burn a CD of your digital photos. If you have taken your photos with a film camera just have a copy of them developed on CD. Any photo lab will burn a CD of your photos for about $5.00 for the first roll and usually less than $2.00 for additional rolls. What are our binding and book size options? Books come in the standard size of 8.5" x 11" or small size 5.5" x 8.5". Binding options are saddle stitch (folded and stapled in spine), plastic spiral, and page sets for your 3 ring binders. Saddle stitch is the most popular but is the only method that does not allow adding b&w "text only" pages in the back of your book. What is the best digital photo file format to use? You can send your photos in any format you like but if you have a choice JPG's in CMYK format at 300dpi are preferred. This applies to all digital photo files including scanning, digital camera files, photo editing software file exporting, etc... What do we do for the cover? You can have anything you want on the cover. Choose a cover template from the back of the templates file or sketch out your own. For instance you could get a blank sheet of paper, draw a box in the middle of it, number the box with the photo number "cover01.jpg", sketch the words "Welcome Back" on the page in large letters, write "words are orange", write "page has dark blue background color" somewhere on the page, etc... We will follow your instructions. Also, you can arrange your page with photo software and export the file to CD. We can place your file on the cover. And finally, you can choose one of the covers in the Page Gallery on the Samples Page. Will Memorybooklets.com crop my photos for me? Yes - we will crop the photos and adjust them for light, contrast, and sharpness. Do you offer collage pages? Yes - you may submit collage pages. Get double prints of your photos and use one set to cut up and arrange on a blank sheet of paper and we will scan them in. Or if you arrange your collage with software on your computer then export the file to CD. Use the collage template 0102 provided in the templates file and follow the instructions. We want 5.5" x 8.5" small books. Should we use the same templates file as for the 8.5" x 11" standard size books? Yes - use the same templates file. In your printer's Page Set Up menu choose to print the pages at 50% size if you want to see what the actual size will be. Otherwise feel free to work with the full size templates and we will reduce all of your content to 50% size when we lay out the book. If you can not print at 50% be sure to sketch out a template at 5.5" x 8.5" size and print out a couple of your photos at the size of the boxes on your template to be sure the photos will be large enough to see. We have a membership roster of names, addresses, and phone numbers. How do I submit this "text only" directory information? Use template 0103 to hold the page places in your book. You will enter the actual text in the text file (see example #2). Or if you have your roster in a database you can export it or "save as" a separate file named "roster.txt" in tab delimited format or "roster.csv" in comma delimited format. Be sure that your roster is up to date. Delete unwanted records and fields so that the file we get contains only the information you want printed. What kind of options are available? Can I get page borders? Yes - we are glad to provide page borders, photo borders, rounded photo corners, colored text, clip art, or anything else you may want. Just tell us what you want, draw a sketch, or give us some written instructions. We provide a totally custom experience for you at no additional charge. Can I layout the pages myself on blank sheets of paper? Yes - we will be glad to scan in pages you have laid out yourself. Use our page size of 8.5" x 11" or (5.5" x 8.5" for small books). Use at least a .25" margin from all outside edges. Can I submit my book using software? Yes - you can lay out each page and export each page to CD using the page numbers as the filenames (Page1.jpg, page2.jpg, etc...). Or you can submit your entire book as a PDF file. When creating PDF files it is best to submit 2 separate files. Save the cover to one file and the interior pages to another. Make cover 11 x 17 (8.5 x 11 for small books) for saddle stitch books. If you need to bleed a background color all the way to the page edge on the cover make your page size 12 x 18 and we will trim 1/2 inch off of every side. Set all interior pages at 8.5 x 11 (5.5 x 8.5 for small books) with a 1/4" margin. Interior page count needs to be a multiple of 4 (8 for small books). Set Distiller options to the following settings: 300 dpi medium compression all images, 600 dpi all line art and text, embed all fonts, include all downloadable fonts. What settings should I use when taking photos with my digital camera? Always use the highest quality settings on your camera. Use at least a 2 megapixel camera for larger photos. The file size for small photos like the ones that fit 16 to a page (1.4" x 1.75") need to be at least 200 kilobytes (KB). A 6" x 8" photo should be at least 700 KB. You will be able to see these file sizes when you load your pictures on to your computer and look at the files on your hard drive. You can also open these files on your computer and check to see that the photos are at least 300dpi at the size they will be printed. Remember we can always reduce photo size but it is hard to enlarge with good quality so bigger files are better. What photography tips can I use when taking pictures? The people in each photograph should be close together so their image will be larger. Shoot enough background so when we crop these photos the background can extend to the edges of the template boxes. In other words do not take the photo such that the people fill up the entire shot. For example: Churches usually choose a horizontal rectangular format to accommodate families with children. All photos will have the same rectangular shape so if you are shooting a single person make sure your photo has adequate background space to the left and right of the person so when we crop it as a horizontal rectangle the background can extend to the edge of the photo box. You can reduce the "red eye" effect by having bright lights on in the room or using the red eye reduction flash mode on the camera. My church would like to produce a directory that will be easy to add pages for new members in the future. Is this possible? Yes - we can print the page sets already collated, drilled, and ready to be placed into your own 3-ring binders. This method is becoming increasingly popular. |
