MSP Yearbooks Quick Start Guide

Transcription

1 MSP Yearbooks Quick Start Guide February 2015

2 Contents Quick Start Guide 1 Introduction 1.1 Welcome to MSP Yearbooks Help at your fingertips 1 2 Before you start Security settings information for your IT department Activation 3 3 Let s get started! 3.1 Setting up your MSP Yearbook Margins and guides 6 4 Setting up your pages 4.1 Adding pages Arranging pages Duplicating pages Deleting pages 9 5 Formatting your text 5.1 Creating a text box Changing the font Changing the font style Changing the font colour Creating a text shadow Rotating text Aligning text Text Effects 13 6 Editing your images 6.1 Creating an image box Inserting your images Editing your images Framing your images Creating shadows Splitting an image box into multiple frames Cropping and resizing images Rotating images 19 7 Using special features 7.1 Auto Collage Auto jumble collage Clip art and stock image libraries Page backgrounds 22 8 Adding text to images 8.1 Adding text to image boxes 23 9 Numbering your pages 9.1 Adding page numbers to your yearbook Using templates 10.1 Using MSP Yearbooks page and cover templates Final steps 11.1 Saving your yearbook Re-opening your saved yearbook Submitting to publisher 28

3 1. Introduction 1.1 Welcome to MSP Yearbooks Our system is supported by next generation yearbook software and will make creating your yearbook a cinch. This handy guide is designed to provide you with some important information you need to get started. From activating your licence, to creating pages and saving your work on the go we ll take you through step by step. Then it s up to you and your imagination. Good luck and Happy Yearbooking! 1.2 Help at your fingertips We re sure you ll be creating amazing yearbooks in no time... However, if ever you want more details or some individual guidance, help is at your fingertips. Simply head online to check out a full range of video tutorials, access help files or join the forums. Online Portal Video Tutorials Frequently Asked Questions Or contact our friendly MSP Yearbooks team via phone or yearbooks@msp.com.au. 1

4 2. Before you start Security settings information for your IT department Before you can get started, we need to ensure that your proxy settings are correct for the software. Your IT department will need to unblock the ports and domains required (*see below), and they will need to enter the proxy details manually, by following these steps: 1. Click on the Create tab, then go to Edit and select User Preference. 2. Enter your details into the HTTP proxy and HTTPS proxy fields. 3. If you are required to use login details to browse the internet, please select the appropriate authentication method button (usually this is Basic) under both HTTP and HTTPS Authentication and add in your login credentials. 4. Under HTTP Gateway, enter into the HTTP field and into the HTTPS field. The program will need to be restarted once this is done. If setup correctly, this icon will appear in the bottom right hand corner of the program. Please review the settings entered if you have this icon *Domains and ports required to be unblocked (port 80) and (port 443) 2

5 2. Before you start Activation To use your FotoFusion software, you will first need to activate it. Your User ID and Password are found in your welcome letter. 1. Go to Help and select Activate FotoFusion > Activate Online. 2. Enter your User ID: 00*** 3. Create Password: ***** 4. Click Submit. You should receive a confirmation message once activated and the program should restart. 3

6 3. Let s get started! 3.1 Setting up your MSP Yearbook Now that you have checked your settings and activated your software, it s time to get started building your yearbook. 1. Once the program opens, the start menu will appear. Click New to start your yearbook project. 2. Select Book, then select New Book. 3. Create a Title for your book, then click Create New Book. 4

7 3.1 Setting up your MSP Yearbook (continued) You are now in the Book Management area. This menu creates all the chapters and pages for the entire book. 4. Select New Chapter to create a chapter. 5. Enter a Title for the chapter (eg. Class A). You can begin designing your pages by hovering over the chapter and then clicking the Pencil icon. You may also set the number of pages for that chapter, however, this is not mandatory as you can create more pages as you edit each chapter. Do not enable the online check box. Your pages will be saved to the server without this option selected. 6. To edit the chapter and start creating pages, click on the piece of paper and pen icon or double-click the chapter. TIP Create a separate chapter for each class that will be working on a set of pages. It s simple to organise and find, and will make it easier to manage! 5

8 3.2 Margins and guides Once your document has been created, your first page appears. You will notice three different coloured lines bordering your page. These are the margins and guides that will help you to design your pages within the printable areas. Red These are the margins for images. You will need to ensure all your images on the page stay well within these guides to avoid being cut off. Green These are margins for your text. Keep all your text within these guides to ensure that you do not lose any text in printing. Grey strip This area indicates the spine of the book absolutely nothing should be sitting in the grey area. 6

9 4. Setting up your pages 4.1 Adding pages 1. Hover over the Pages tab at the foot of the page to bring up the pages control dock which will be showing your first blank page. 2. To add pages, select the + icon and a menu will appear. Note: You can pin this tab to the screen by clicking on the pin icon on the far right-hand side of the tab. 7

10 4.1 Adding pages (continued) 4. To create a single page select Album side. If you want to create a double-page spread select the Album Two-Page Spread option. If you would like to create a cover, select the cover sheet appropriate for the size of your book. 4.2 Arranging pages Arranging and moving the pages in your yearbook is easy. 1. Simply click on the page you want to move, and drag and drop it where you want it to be placed. Don t worry about page numbering as the program will rearrange the page numbers accordingly. Note: The pages may lose orientation during the production of your book when adding/deleting pages and templates. Before notifying MSP that your book is ready for submisson, please right mouse click on Page 1 and select Right Side. This will ensure the correct orientation of the pages throughout the book. 8

11 4.3 Duplicating pages Duplicating pages is an easy way to keep your theme consistent throughout your yearbook. 1. Simply select the page you wish to duplicate from the pages control dock and click on the overlapping pages icon. A new page that is exactly the same as the seleted page will appear. Drag and drop this page into the order you desire. 4.4 Deleting pages 1. If you want to delete a page, select the page from the pages control dock and click on the red X icon or press delete on your keyboard. The page numbering will automatically adjust. 9

12 5. Formatting your text 5.1 Creating a text box Now you are ready to start adding your text. 1. Hold down the T key on the keyboard, click and hold the mouse down and drag the text box to size required. Let go of the mouse and you will have an editable text field. Alternatively, you can click on the T icon on the hovering tool bar to add a text box to the page. 2. Double click in the box to start typing. You can also copy and paste your text from other word processing programs. In LumaPix YearbookFusion the text is automatically resized to fit within the text box. This is perfect for creating quick and easy yearbook pages. If you want to change the sizing, simply click in the text box and edit as required from the text menu. 10

13 5.2 Changing the font Once a text box is created a menu will appear on the screen. Hover over the T icon and it will highlight red. Click on this and a menu will appear. This menu allows you change font style, font colour, font size, stroke width and colour and alignment Changing the font style To change the font style simply click on the Font menu and a drop down list will appear with a selection to choose from Changing the font colour From the text menu simply click on Fill menu and choose from a wide spectrum of colours Creating a text shadow Simply click the Shadow menu to set shadow attributes. 11

14 5.3 Rotating text 1. Click on your text box and blue tabs will appear. At the top of the box in the middle is a teardrop icon. 2. Click on this and hold the mouse down to rotate the text frame from 0 to 360. Hold ALT to snap at 45 increments. 5.4 Aligning text To change the alignment click on the Font menu and a drop down list will appear. Simply select the alignment you desire from the list. 12

15 5.5 Text Effects To access the different text effects, click on the Effects tab in the text menu and select the effect from the drop down menu. Some of the effects include: Fuzzy Blur Transparent Emboss Opaque Shaded edge Inner Shade Convert text to matte, so you can apply a picture into the text Note: Make sure you increase the Amount from zero, otherwise you may not notice the effect being applied. You can make further adjustments from the Advanced tab in the font menu. For example, skewing or rotating the text. Fuzzy Blur Opaque Shaded Edge Skewed Text Rotated Text Convert to Matte 13

16 6. Editing your images 6.1 Creating an image box 1. Hold down the F key on your keyboard, click and hold the mouse and drag to desired size. 2. It will appear as a purple frame, similar to text boxes. Let go of the mouse once the frame is at the right size, and it will change to read Drop Photo Here. 3. Alternatively you can drag your image and drop it directly onto the canvas. TIP If you are having trouble resizing your image, try locking the aspect ratio before you resize your photo. To lock the aspect ratio of an image, select your image then tap a on your keyboard and then resize your image. An image with a locked aspect ratio will only have 4 blue handles around the box. 14

17 6.2 Inserting your images 1. Click on the Images tab, and navigate to your school s local network or USB drive to upload the required images. 2. Select the images and drag and drop the image into the image box once the image box is highlighted red. You can also choose to drag and drop straight from Windows Explorer. 3. When you insert the image into Fotofusion a notification will appear asking you whether you would like to leave the images where they are or copy them locally. If you are inserting an image stored on a disk, USB drive, external hard drive or a network location which will become unavailable (eg. if you are working on a laptop between school and home) select copy the images locally. TIP Hold down the Shift key and select more than one image from your folder. Drag and drop multiple images at a time! 15

18 6.3 Editing your images Once an image box is drawn a menu will appear. 1. Hover over the dark grey centre of the icon and it will highlight red. 2. Click for menu of image options with General and Fill tabs. General tab allows you to select and/or adjust settings such as opacity, black and white, sepia, brightness and contrast. Fill tab allows you to add background fill or colour to your image. TIP If you are trying to make your image transparent, try adjusting the Opacity slider to less than 1. Setting opacity to no less than 0.5 is recommended for transparent images. 16

19 6.4 Framing your images Another great feature is framing images. 1. Hover over the white frame on the icon and click to bring up the frame menu. 2. There are many frame options including: Border tab to change the thickness, colour and shape of the border. Gradient tab to add a gradient to your image. Matte tab to add an interesting texture to your image. General tab to change the height, width, angle and location of your image. TIP To remove a border from your image, untick the Border check box, found under the Border tab of the Frame menu. 6.5 Creating shadows 1. Hover over the shadow on the icon and click to make the shadow menu appear. In this menu there are options to edit the angle, blur and colour of the shadow. TIP To remove the shadow from your image, untick the Show Shadow check box, found in the Shadow menu. 17

20 6.6 Splitting an image box into multiple frames A great feature of MSP Yearbooks is being able to split an image box into multiple even frames. 1. Select the split image icon and drag your mouse left or right to make a vertical split and up or down to make a horizontal split. While doing this, blue lines will appear where the image box will split. Once you have the split you require, let go of your mouse and the split image boxes will appear. 6.7 Cropping and resizing images 1. To adjust the way the image is cropped in the image box, simply drag the yellow handles on the corners in or out to adjust the zoom on the image. 2. To pan around the image or move the image around in the image box, drag the yellow star icon around as desired. 3. To automatically resize a frame so that it includes your entire image, select your image and press Ctrl+F. 4. To lock the aspect ratio of an image so that it resizes proportionally, select your image, press a on your keyboard and resize your image. 18

21 6.8 Rotating images 1. To resize an image box, drag the blue handles in and out. 2. To rotate an image box, click and hold the teardrop icon to turn the image from 0 to 360. Hold the ALT key to snap to 45 increments. 19

22 7. Using special features 7.1 Auto Collage 1. Select all of the images for the collage and drag to click on Auto collage (in the top menu bar). Your images will be automatically placed onto the page at random. 2. To change the layout of the images, keep clicking on the button to cycle through different layout options. You may also choose to drag images onto the canvas and then click on Auto collage (Alt Q shortcut) 7.2 Auto jumble collage 1. Simply click on Auto jumble and your images will be automatically arranged onto the page at random. 2. To change the layout of the images, keep clicking on the Auto jumble button to cycle through different layout options (Alt Shift Q shotcut). 20

23 7.3 Clip art and stock image libraries 1. There are three different libraries with multiple clip art options. Select from Generic clip art / Interesting image frames / Background textures from the top menu bar. 2. To select an image from a clip art library, select the image and simply drag and drop the image into the page. The image will then become completely editable, similar to a normal image box. 3. More downloadable content is available in the lumapix clipart folder in the gallery. 21

24 7.4 Page backgrounds 1. Select the texture or image and simply drag and drop the image into the brown space around the page (the page will become outlined in red when you can drop the image). The background will then be placed onto the page and will be completely editable like a normal image box. 2. If applying text over the top, drop the opacity of the image to allow for visabilitly of the text. 22

25 8. Adding text to images 8.1 Adding text to image boxes 1. Draw an image box by holding the F Key. 2. Navigate to the Images tab, select an image and drag and drop the image onto the frame. 3. Make sure the image is still selected (Blue and Yellow tabs appear around the image). Click on the T icon. Text will appear inside the image, similar to a normal text box. The text menu will appear and text will be completely editable. Note: The text box is now attached to the image box. It will move and resize with the image box. 23

26 9. Numbering your pages 9.1 Adding page numbers to your yearbook 1. Go to Tools > Project > Page Numbering the page numbering menu will appear on the screen. 2. Tick Enable page numbering. 3. Click on Offset and use the slider to position the location of the page number. 4. Click on Size to change the font size. 5. Click on Appearance to pull up the menu to change the font style and font colour. 24

27 9.1 Adding page numbers to your yearbook (continued) 6. Click on the Appearance tab to change the colour. 7. Click on the Layout tab to change the size and font. 25

28 10. Using templates 10.1 Using MSP Yearbooks page and cover templates MSP Yearbooks now has a number of page and cover templates for your convenience. 1. To access these templates make sure you are in the main tab of the Create menu, and navigate to Gallery. 2. By default you will be looking at your Dropbox folder. Click on the folder icon with the arrow on it to go back. 3. Click on the Templates folder to access Yearbook Covers and Yearbook Templates. 4. Select a template and select Append from the drop down menu. To go back at any time click on the folder icon with the arrow on it. MSP Yearbooks has also developed an extensive range of covers, clip art and backgrounds to choose from. 5. Go to the Lumapix Clipart folder and simply drag and drop your selection onto the page or click on Add to canvas from the drop down menu. 26

29 11. Final steps 11.1 Saving your yearbook 1. Go to File > Save. This will save to the remote server by default. TIP If you are experiencing issues saving your project, please try the following steps: 1. Go to File > Save as > select Remote Storage 2. Enter a name for your project and include the date and select Save 3. Call MSP Yearbooks on so that your project can be added to your book menu. If you still receive an error while trying to save to Remote Storage it is important that you save your file somewhere. Go to File > Save as > Locally > select a save destination (eg. Desktop). Next contact MSP Yearbooks who can assist with troubleshooting the issue. 27

30 11.2 Re-opening your saved yearbook 1. To open your book and continue working on your pages, simply open up Fotofusion and select Open > Book > Load Book. 2. Select your book from the menu (there should be only one to select) and select Open book. 3. Double-click your chapter and continue creating! Note: Chapters will automatically lock if another user is accessing it or if the chapter was not closed correctly. To unlock, hover over the chapter and click on the padlock icon and confirm that you wish to unlock it. Please ensure that no other user is accessing the chapter before doing so, otherwise data loss may occur! 11.3 Submitting to publisher Once the entire yearbook is completed contact MSP Yearbooks. MSP Yearbooks will download and prepare your completed artwork, and we will organise a hard copy proof to be sent to your school. If changes are required, you will need to edit those pages in your project. Contact MSP Yearbooks once your changes are completed and further digital proofs will be supplied. Once happy with the proof, you will need to complete the approval form (sent with the hard copy proof) and or fax it to us. Please note that the allotted timeframe from submitting your yearbook to signed approval is two weeks. If you re ahead of your production schedule, you ll have more time to proof and approve for print. Yearbooks are then printed and delivered to your school for your students, staff and their families to enjoy. Please note that if you believe you will not meet your production milestones, you will need to call us to discuss as soon as possible. 28

31 MSP Yearbooks Help at your fingertips If you have any other questions or require assistance our friendly MSP Yearbooks team is always here to help. Call or send us an Call us today on