11. iPhoto Goes to the Movies

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10.7. Phase 7: Send the Book to the Bindery

When you think your book is ready for birth, click Buy Book.

After several minutes of converting your screen design into an Internet-transmittable file, iPhoto offers you a screen like the one shown in Figure 10-13.

That is, assuming you don't get any of iPhoto's pre-publication warnings first, namely, that you haven't filled in all the default text boxes, like the title and subtitle ; that some of your text boxes or photos bear the yellow-triangle low-resolution warning (see the box on page 271); that your book is "incomplete" (you didn't fill in all the gray placeholder rectangles with pictures); and so on.

At this stage, your tasks are largely administrative.

  • Choose a cover color (hardback books only). Use the Cover Color pop-up menu to choose Black, Burgundy (red), Light Gray, or Navy (blue). The book in the illustration changes color to show you what you're getting. (If you're ordering more than one book, they must all have the same color.)

  • Inspect the charges. If you've gone beyond the basic 10 or 20 pages, you'll see that you're about to be charged between $.30 and $1.50 per additional page, depending on the book type.

    Figure 10-13. Choose a color, a quantity, and a recipient. You won't be allowed to choose a quantity or recipient, though, until you've first signed up for an Apple account, which you'll enjoy using over and over again to order books and stuff from the Apple online stores. To sign up for an account, click the Set Up Account button (not shown here, but it would appear in place of Buy Now if this were your first time).


  • Indicate the quantity. You can order additional copies of the same book. Indeed, after you've spent so much time on a gift book for someone else, you may well be tempted to order yourself a copy.

10.7.1. Your Apple ID and One-Click Ordering

You can't actually order a book until you've signed up for an Apple account and turned on "1-Click Ordering."

However, you may well already have an Apple account if, say, you've ever bought something from an online Apple store or the iTunes Music Store. Whether you have or not, ordering your first iPhoto book requires completing some electronic paperwork like this:

  1. In the Order Book dialog box (Figure 10-13), click Set Up Account.

    This button appears only if you've never ordered an iPhoto book before. In any case, an Apple Account Sign-In screen appears. If you already have an Apple account, type in your Apple ID and account password here by all means. (An Apple ID is your email address; it's your .Mac address, if you have that.)

    When you're finished, click Sign In. On the next screen, make sure 1-Click Ordering is turned on. Click Edit Shipping, if you like, to supply any addresses you plan to use repeatedly for shipping books and Kodak prints to. Finally, click Done. Skip to step 7.

    If you've never established an Apple account before, go on:

  2. Click Create Account.

    The Create an Apple Account screen appears.

  3. Fill in your email address, a password (twice), a question (which you'll be asked if you forget your password) and its answer, and your date of birth.

    Unless you enjoy receiving junk email, turn off"I would like to receive Apple news, software updates, special offers, and information from other companies."

  4. Click the step 2 button; on the Terms of Use screen, click Accept.

    Now you're asked for your billing information. This is how you'll pay for the book, and all books to come.

  5. Fill in your billing information, and then click Continue.

    iPhoto lets you set up a number of addresses for people you may want books shipped to. The next screen proposes that you add yourself to this list.

  6. Click the step 3 button.

    You wind up right where you started: at the Order Book screen. This time, however, the controls at the bottom are "live" and operational.

  7. From the Ship To pop-up menu, choose the lucky recipient of this book.

    If it's you, choose Myself. If not, you can choose Add New Address from this pop-up menu.


    Note: You can order books if you live in Europe, Japan, or North America, but Apple offers shipping only to people in your own region.

    If you wind up at the 1-Click Account Summary screen following this detour , click Done.

  8. From the Ship Via pop-up menu, indicate how you want the finished book shipped.

    For U.S. orders,"Standard"shipping takes about four days and costs $8."Express" means overnight or second-day shipping (depending on when you place the order) and costs $15. An additional book sent to the same address costs another $1 for Standard shipping, or $2 for Express.

  9. Indicate how many copies of the book you want, using the Quantity control.

    You'll see the Order Total updated.

  10. Click Buy Now.

    You've already stored your credit card information, so there's nothing to do now but wait for your Mac to upload the book itself. After a few minutes, you'll see a confirmation message.

  11. Go about your life for a few days, holding your breath until the book arrives.

    WORKAROUND WORKSHOP
    Secrets of the Apple Book Publishing Empire

    It's no secret that when you order prints of your photos via the Internet, Kodak makes the prints. But neither temptation nor torture will persuade Apple to reveal who makes the gorgeous iPhoto photo books.

    It didn't take long for Mac fans on the Internet, however, to discover some astonishing similarities between the iPhoto books and the books created by a firm called MyPublisher.com. The pricing, timing, and books themselves are all identical. (When asked if it's Apple's publishing partner, MyPublisher.com says, "We don't discuss our partner relationships," which means "Yes.")

    The truth is, iPhoto-generated books are more elegantly designed than the ones you build yourself at MyPublisher. And it's certainly easier to upload books directly from iPhoto, rather than uploading photo files one at a time using your Web browser.

    Still, you should know that building your books directly at MyPublisher.com offers greater design freedom than iPhoto does. You have a wider choice of cover colors and materials (even leather), you can add a glossy dust jacket, you can add borders around the pages, and you have much more flexibility over the placement of photos and text.

    In fact, it's easy to get carried away with these options and produce something absolutely ghastly, which is probably why Apple chose to limit your options. This way, you simply can't go wrong.


    And when it does, you'll certainly be impressed. The photos are printed on Indigo digital presses (fancy, digital, four-color offset machines). They're not what you'd call Kodak quality ”or even photo-inkjet-on-glossy-paper quality. But the book itself is classy, it's handsome and it smells good!

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iPhoto 5. The Missing Manual
iPhoto 5. The Missing Manual
ISBN: 596100345
EAN: N/A
Year: 2005
Pages: 179

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