Introduction To PhotobooksRus

Photobooksrus is a software package designed to help you share your photos, share your life.

This guide is designed to help you with the downloaded (offline) software version of our designer. Most of the advice in this guide also applies to our online designer, although the appearance of the interface and functionality of the software and online designers differ slightly.

The software is easy enough that anyone with basic computer skills can quickly and easily create a magnificent self-designed keepsake. For quick design you can use “The Wizard”, or for advanced users, the provided tools empower you to create a professional document with drop shadows, vignettes, masks, shapes, colours and rich text.

There’s a great range of printed products available, ranging from Calendars to Canvases, Hard Cover and Soft Cover Photobooks.

The more you use Photobooksrus and familiarise yourself with the tools, the more creative and beautiful the memory will be to share.

Photobooksrus software runs on your own computer and uses photo libraries you have selected from your hard drive. It’s not a web based program, and runs directly from your hard drive.

Once the software has been downloaded and updates are installed there is no further Internet usage apart from periodic updates, until you have completed your product and are ready to upload it to us for printing and dispatching.

At Photobooksrus, the protection of your privacy is very important to us. We are bound by and conform to the Australian National Privacy Guidelines (which are part of the Privacy Act) and also adhere to Anti-Spam Regulations.
For further Terms and Conditions please visit Terms & Conditions

Getting Started For PC & Mac

The first thing to do is download the software for Mac or PC. Once you have selected which version suits your computer, save it to your hard drive.
The size of the download varies, but the Windows version is approximately 150mb, the Mac version is slightly larger.

Special Considerations for Mac:

If your Mac is current and is running the operating system called Sierra then you need to manually change the Gatekeeper to accept 3rd Party Software.

Please refer to this link with a set of instructions on how to change the Gatekeeper.

www.fitzweekly.com/2016/06/disable-gatekeeper-in-macos-sierra.html

Once you have made these changes please download a fresh copy of the software and install it.

This will allow you to install the software correctly.

If you have an older Mac and operating system and get a system security error, you need to go to the mac menu in the top left hand corner.

Under 'System Preferences', can you please click on this then select Security.

Under this tab you will find an over ride that allows you to install the software.

Installation For PC

Now that you have downloaded the software, find the location you downloaded the installer to (typically the downloads folder, or your desktop) and right-click the Photobooksrus icon, and select 'Run as Administrator':

run_as_admin — Running as Administrator may require an administrator password.

This will activate the install Wizard. Once you see the first screen below, press ‘Next’.

The software will now ask you where you would like to install the software. We recommend that you allow the Wizard to install to its default locations.

Install Step 2 (Install location - Leave as default)

Click Next, and on on the resulting page click Install. the software will now install to the designated folder. This will take between 2 and 4 minutes to complete.

Install-3 — Install Step 3 (Start Menu options - Leave as default)

Install-4 — Install Step 4 (Downloading and applying updates in progress)

Install-5 — Install Step 5 (Click Finish)

Installation For Mac

After downloading the software, your Mac will have opened a window that shows a blue suitcase on the left and a the software labelled folder on the right.
Click and hold the blue suitcase, drag and drop it on the the software labelled suitcase and your install is complete.
If prompted for a security password, please enter the user ‘admin’ password on that computer.

First Run

Updates for Mac and PC

By default, the software places an icon in your start menu/all programs (this also has your uninstall option) and a shortcut on your desktop. The first time you activate the software it will first initialise for a moment and then start up. At PhotobooksRus we are continually updating the software, improving current products and adding new ones.

The software will automatically check for new updates every time it is started, and we highly recommend that you allow the software to download and run updates every time you are notified that there is an update available.

It is very important that on the initial start up of the software, you perform all updates, as the software will not run correctly if it is not updated with the current improvements. NOTE: The Mac version will have a much larger download with more products than the PC version when you get to this stage.

Checking for and Applying Updates For Mac & PC

After this stage, everything is the same for both MAC and PC and we are nearly ready to start creating. There could be multiple minor updates to be downloaded and run.

The software will check for updates and alert you if updates are available:

There are two types of updates:

‘Application Data’, which must always be updated on its own, and requires a restart of the software.
‘Asset’ Updates, including projects, frames, backgrounds, clip art, etc.

Application Data Update (Tick Box and press 'Install' button)

We recommend updating the ‘Application Data’ first. This will require a restart of the software (Not your computer.)

Update-3 — Application Data updates require the software perform a restart. (Press 'Yes')

Then select all of the ‘Asset’ updates and install them after the software has restarted. 'Assets' may include Projects, Backgrounds, Masks, Frames etc. To ensure all projects work as expected, please select ALL available updates.

Project Data updates available (tick category box to select all boxes at once)

The software will download and apply the updates:

Note: If your updates don't show up, close the software, right-click on the icon you use to open the software, select run as administrator from the menu, perform the update and restart as per normal.

When there are no updates left, we are finished and ready to create!

Note: Skipping updates will limit the number of projects available in the software, and may mean that some projects cannot be uploaded. As stated we highly recommend running all updates.