Video: The Crop Tool – Yearbooks Desktop
Posted by: In: Help and Tips, Tutorials, Videos 09 Oct 2013 Comments: 4 Tags: , , , , , , , ,

We published our first new video for Yearbooks last week, and the topic was the Floating Toolbar.   This is the second video from that recording session, and another recording session will be scheduled shortly.  If you have any ideas for video topics, please leave a comment and we will consider making it into a help video!

The Crop Tool is one of the most useful and versatile tools in Yearbooks.   The tool can be most easily accessed by simply double-clicking on any candid image.  The first thing you will see when the Crop Tool opens up is a full-resolution display of the image you are cropping.  Sometimes this can be a very large image (as Dave shows us in the video) so you may need to zoom out a bit (or a lot, depending on the image of course).   The “Rotate 90” button is a quick way to correct images that were imported and appear sideways – this can happen when you are importing photos from multiple sources like smart-phones or digital cameras, not all of them will save the image orientation correctly.

Simply draw a box where you want to crop the image, and click the crop button.  It’s that simple!  If you make a mistake, just return to the page, delete the photo and re-import it, and then you can try again.  You can find more information about the Crop Tool in our online help guide.

We will be adding new videos every week so be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel, and thanks for watching.

 

Video: Floating Toolbar Overview – Yearbooks Desktop
Posted by: In: Help and Tips, Tech Support, Tutorials, Uncategorized, Videos 03 Oct 2013 Comments: 0 Tags: , , , , , ,

As mentioned last week, we have completed shooting a new tutorial video on the Floating Toolbar in the new Yearbooks Desktop (download here).   We managed to record two videos during the session, and the first one was edited today.

The floating toolbar is one of the new enhancements granted to us by developing the Canvas page editor.   The toolbar appears on the right side of your screen when you right click on any object and choose “Object Properties”.  From the toolbar you have access to a context sensitive menu – when you click on a text object, the text controls are enabled; likewise when you click on a shape or candid image, the corresponding controls are activated.    We made this change to provide more screen ‘real estate’, and the result is that the draw area of the Page Editor has gained about 20% more workable space.

Here’s the video, we’ll be adding more videos very soon.  Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel to be the first to know about new videos and announcements.

 

Yearbooks Desktop Help Videos – New Content Coming Soon
Posted by: In: Help and Tips, Tech Support, Tutorials, Videos 24 Sep 2013 Comments: 0 Tags: , , , , , , , ,

If you are brand new to our software and are looking for some instruction on how to get started, or an overview of the major features of the program, you should definitely visit our YouTube channel.  We’ve created tutorial videos of how to Import Students from your PSPA File, Generate PDF files, Auto-Flow your Panels, and over a dozen more helpful videos for Yearbooks Desktop.

Each year we review our video archives to share new best practices, highlight new features and promote our software around the net.   This year we have decided to create some new videos, and the production will start immediately!  Dave and Simon are setting up the recording studio space and will be adding new videos to our channel very soon.  We don’t have a voice actor this year, so it’s likely we’ll hear one of their voices on the audio track.  This year we are recording the videos with CamStudio and editing them with Sony Vegas Pro and Photoshop (our previous videos were mostly created with CamTasia).

Do you have any suggestions or topics you’d like discussed or demonstrated in a video ?  Leave us a comment below.   Here is our current Yearbooks Desktop YouTube playlist, which you can also get to by clicking the ‘Videos’ button on the Registration Screen.