New features and a few clarifications
First off, thanks to everyone who participated in last night’s AncestryPress webinar. We’ll post it in the Learning Center archive next week so that those of you who missed it can watch it at your leisure.
I’d like to clarify a couple of points that I didn’t explain quite as well as I might have during the webinar.
1. I mentioned that if you have four generations in your online tree, AncestryPress will auto-generate a book that is about 24 pages long. To be precise, if you have four generations of names with no records attached, AncestryPress will generate 23 pages if you choose the Standard Family Tree format or 22 pages if you choose the Combination Family Tree format. If you have records attached to those ancestors, AncestryPress will also create a page for each record. So the length of the auto-generated portion of your book will vary depending on how much data you have in your tree. Of course, if you don’t want to include 15 timelines because your information is sparse for some of those ancestors, you can delete some of the auto-generated pages. If you have more than four generations in your tree, AncestryPress will include only four generations when it auto-generates the book. You can pull in data for the other generations by adding pages using the Family Tree, Family Group Sheet and Timeline templates. You can add as many pages as you’d like, but keep in mind that if your book has more than 100 pages, you’ll have to break it into two volumes before you print it.
2. During the video clip about the embellishments, I said that you can do anything with an embellishment that you can do with an image, except maybe change the color (I wasn’t sure about that). It turns out that you can change embellishments to black-and-white or sepia. I’ve been playing around with that a little bit, and the results can be quite striking. It’s a good way to add some subtle decorations that don’t overwhelm the other elements on the page, especially if you’re working with black-and-white or sepia photographs.
3. The second-to-last slide noted that AncestryPress books must have a minimum of 24 pages. The minimum is actually 20 pages. The base price (currently $29.95) includes 24 pages, so if you order a book with only 20 pages, you’ll pay the same price you’d pay for a 24-page book.
If you’re confused about anything else I said (or should have said) during the AncestryPress webinar, please let me know!
If you have a comment about the Family Tree Maker webinar—or the software—please post it on the Family Tree Maker blog so that we can respond to it appropriately. You can make sure you’re on the right blog by checking the Categories in the Information and Links box on the right side of the page.
We’ve added several new features to AncestryPress over the past few weeks:
- You can now delete the rule lines at the top of any AncestryPress page. This feature was added on October 11, so it only works for pages that were created after that date.
- If you have a lot of images in your asset tray and you want to be able to view more thumbnails at once, you can expand the asset tray by grabbing the little tab in the middle of the splitter (slide bar) and pulling it to the right. You can also do the same thing for embellishments and Ancestry records.
- We’ve made it easier to add text. It used to be that when you clicked the Add Text icon at the top of the AncestryPress interface, a text box would appear in the middle of the page and you had to move it where you wanted it. Now the text box appears wherever you click on the page.
- We’ve improved the navigation of the Help section to make it easier for you to find answers to your questions.
- We added a new batch of embellishments on October 24, including frames, journal pads, question pads, stamps and more flowers and pins (buttons).
- Yesterday we launched Family Tree Posters that you can frame and display in your home. These make great gifts, and they’re very easy to create. I’ll discuss this new product line in more detail in next week’s blog.
As always, thanks for your comments. If you’ve ordered a printed copy of your family history book, we’d love to hear your reaction to the finished product. We’ve designed the print specifications carefully to provide you with an heirloom-quality book at an affordable price, and we want to make sure you’re happy with both the book building experience and the printed output.
I really enjoyed the webinar! I can see where I could have improved my two volumes that I have already had printed by some tricks you pointed out; however, I am still very happy with my first attempts with the Beta version of Ancestry Press, and am working on another book now. I happen to have Passage Express and found that I could create some really interesting images, save them to my hard drive as photos, and then upload them to my project at Ancestry Press. I am really looking forward to some more background options that you indicate are in the works. I still want to know where the font came from for the red titles on the sample military pages on the website, and shown again at the webinar. I can find nothing like it within the software. Is it a trick with italics and/or the bold feature?
Thanks again … keep posting ideas and tips.