| Pick a topic |  |
| Format & Layout |
| Review options for book and cover design selections. |
| Projects |
| Get help with creating projects. |
| Importing |
| About the import process, supported sites, things to look out for. |
| Photos |
| Explanation of resolution requirements, uploading, and image manipulation. |
| Sharing & Store |
| All about sharing projects and the drop the world bookstore. |
| Pricing, Shipping & Payment |
| Includes pricing, shipping, and return policy. |
| General |
| Security questions and general issues. |
Format & Layout FAQ
Binding, Book Size & Page Count
| What are your page count requirements and book measurements? |
| The table below shows details about minimum and maximum page counts as well as the dimensions of each book. |
| Min | Max | Book Size |
| Square Softcover | 20 | 600 | 8.5" x 8.5" |
| | | 21.6 x 21.6 cm |
| Wide Softcover | 20 | 600 | 9" x 7" |
| | | 22.9 x 17.8 cm |
| Hardcover | 20 | 442 | 8.5" x 11" |
| | | 21.6 x 28 cm |
| What is a "Perfect Binding"? |
| "Perfect Bound" is just printing terminology for the type of softcover binding where the pages are fused to the spine with a special type of glue. If your book is at least 80 pages the title and author will be displayed on the spine (otherwise there isn't enough room). |
| What is a "Casewrap Binding"? |
| A "Casewrap Binding" is the type of binding used in our hardcover books. They use a combination of glue and stitching to produce a sturdy, high-quality binding. Even at low page counts, there is enough room on a casewrap binding for the title and author to be printed. |
| Perfect Binding | Casewrap Binding |  |  |
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Covers
| What are my cover options? |
| Each book size has three cover styles available: a text-only cover, a photo cover that contains one big photo, and a collage cover that contains a mix of 36 small photos. |
| How do I select my cover photo? |
| Under the book design tab, go to the "Covers" section. It will let you select your cover type and choose which photo you'd like to include. Your chosen book size will determine the type of photos you can include on the cover - the square softcover and hardcover books require a landscape photo, and the wide softcover requires a portrait photo. |
| Can I customize the collage cover? |
| You can choose the color of your collage cover, but the photos are chosen automatically from the blogs included in your project. The collage cover requires 36 photos, all in the landscape orientation. The photos are selected randomly, but the cover generator will first include any photos you have marked as "favorites". |
Design Options
| Can I include a profile or introduction page? |
| Yes. We offer a profile page which allows you to write an introduction, include a photo, and tell a bit about yourself if you'd like. This page is optional and if selected will be included at the beginning of your book. |
| What is the blog entries & flags page? |
| You can include a list of your blog entries along with a flag for the country the blog is from. This page is optional and if selected will be included at the beginning of your book. |
| What is "Photo Mode"? |
Photo Mode allows you to decide how you would like your photos displayed. Import Mode will use your existing imported photos - and if you would like certain photos printed big, just mark them as favorites.
Since the books are automatically generated, adjusting the photo mode can also be very useful for users who choose to upload high-quality images. Those who want to print bigger photos can have the book generator place less photos per page (on average). This results in larger photos overall. On the other side, there are those who have huge blogs and those who want to keep cost down. Setting this option to conserve pages will place more photos per page (on average). This can result in significant cost savings. Feel free to try out both ways and see which you like best. |
| Why are there blank pages in my preview? |
| A blank page is inserted into the beginning and end of each book. This is common in book publishing and will give your book a professional feel and help to preserve the quality of the leading and ending pages. A blank page will also be inserted when necessary so that each new blog starts on the right side - this is done to give the book's chapters a consistent look and flow. |
Fonts and Special Characters
| Why are some strange characters appearing in my text? |
| Travel blogs can be typed in a huge variety of countries and language-specific keyboards. The nature of printing books is that not all fonts can print all characters. Most will not have a problem but make sure you read over your preview carefully, paying special attention to any non-US or non-Latin based characters. Anything problematic can easily be replaced by editing the blog text. |
Book Generator
| How does the book generator work? |
| The book generator looks at the content you've selected and chooses an appropriate layout for each page. It bases this layout on the orientation of the upcoming photos and the overall size of your book. Basing each layout on the photo orientation allows us to preserve the order of your pictures. By default, it will conserve pages a bit more for large blogs and be more liberal for smaller ones. This can be adjusted using the photo mode in the Book Design section. |
