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User guide
The usual workflow follows Photos → Places and captions → Album settings → Plan → Preview → PDF. You can revisit choices and regenerate the document after making corrections.
In File → New Project…, choose where to save the .photoalbum file. Its name without the extension becomes the project’s display name. The Rename project button changes this name without moving or renaming the file. This name is separate from both a cover title and the PDF title metadata.
Use File → Open Project… to resume an existing file. The project stores sources, metadata, corrections, page choices and PDF preferences. Changes confirmed in the interface are saved as you work; there is no general “Save” step.
Local photos and external template images remain separate files. The project is therefore not a self-contained archive of originals. Keep these files in place and back them up together with the project. Close the project before copying its file for a backup.
In Photos, add the required folders or albums, check the analysis results and correct missing dates. The Actions column provides access to each photo’s date, GPS and usage. The filename opens the image; hovering displays a preview.
The album body follows the chronology of dated photos. Sorting the table does not reorder pages. A photo without a date is reported and remains outside the body until a date is assigned.
Adding, refreshing, connecting to Synology and choosing metadata are covered in Sources and metadata.
This tab shows photos available to the album, grouped chronologically. Search covers filenames, places and captions, including imported descriptions.
The place and caption are separate texts:
- the place describes the capture location; you can choose an available source, enable or disable its geographic components, or enter a custom place;
- the caption is your free text for the photo. An imported description appears as a suggestion but is not automatically used as an editorial caption.
For a batch place correction, select compatible entries with Ctrl+click. The dialog can activate, deactivate or replace a component within a given context. Review current and future places, uncheck photos to exclude, then apply the change.
Text changes are saved while editing. Composition is updated when leaving the tab or before exporting.
Choose A4, A5 or US Letter in portrait or landscape. For Custom, enter width and height directly in millimetres, then select Apply. The interface accepts 50 to 2000 mm with two decimal places. The orientation selector is disabled in this mode.
Template lists account for the chosen dimensions and page role. See Templates for their specific constraints.
The four positions are the front cover, inside front, inside back and back cover. Choose a template and open Settings… for each position.
Two lists let you add special pages after the inside front cover and before the inside back cover. Up, Down and Remove operate on these lists. A special page that becomes incompatible with the format remains saved but is flagged and omitted from the document; its settings become available again when the format is compatible.
To insert pages within the chronology, use the Plan actions described in Advanced usage.
Day, month and year dividers can be enabled independently. Month and year dividers are initially enabled. The initial day choice becomes enabled when all considered photos are dated and fall within one month; an explicit choice or loaded settings are then preserved.
Each level has its own template and placement: natural flow, always on a right-hand page, or on a right-hand page with a blank facing page. These constraints may introduce technical or editorial blanks.
The default photo-page selection can be fixed or automatic. Its settings apply to ordinary pages; exceptions are defined in the Plan. Page numbering is initially enabled and can be hidden.
Require page count to be a multiple of 4 enables a diagnostic. The application reports how many pages would need to be added; it does not automatically pad the album to that multiple.
The Plan shows covers and body pages in physical order, grouped by year, month and day. It identifies each page’s template and distinguishes special pages, custom templates and blanks.
Review warnings about incompatible templates, captions exceeding template capacity and page counts that do not meet the print constraint. Empty slots are reported separately. An end-of-month optimization estimates how many photos could be added without increasing the page count before the next period; it does not add content.
The Plan also provides page-specific customization: see Advanced usage.
Preview displays covers and spreads in reading order. Check cropping, captions, titles and blank pages.
It uses the same composition as the PDF, with images and calculations adapted for display. A remote thumbnail cannot establish the quality of the original. A settings preview may also use sample content, notably the city list in a month divider.
In PDF, choose the content: complete album, four covers only, or body only. The Document summary displays the complete album page count; the selected content determines which pages are actually exported.
Select 96, 150, 300 or 600 DPI; the default is 300. The interface shows the corresponding pixel dimensions. A higher resolution cannot create detail absent from the original photo.
Title, Author, Subject and Keywords populate PDF properties. They do not change visible page titles. Content choice, resolution and metadata are stored in the project; the output path is not.
Choose an output file, then Generate PDF. Required remote originals are prepared before rendering; reconnect their source if prompted. Progress and the log show the operation’s status. Wait for completion before closing the application.
If the print constraint is enabled and the exported content does not meet it, a confirmation lets you continue or cancel. Covers are exported as four separate pages. Export requires an album with at least one interior page, even for a covers-only PDF.