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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2020 5:07:49 GMT
The way I make my title and author on the spine is setting the cursor on the spine in the template and type it out. Then I move it from horizontal to vertical, center from the book top and bottom and then the sides of the spine. Only takes a few seconds.I use the " free transform" tool in Photoshop for that. There are guidelines that pop up showing when your graphics or text are centered. I can't remember the name of them. It's a setting you can choose. It does help to get things centered correctly.You could probably use Photoshop to add the photo to the spine like you wanted. Then resize it using the free transform tool. Then just add the text as explained above. To be honest once you learn to use the template in Photoshop you can make some really nice covers. Better than using the old wizard. It's not that hard once you do it once or twice. Here is my latest one. I got advice on the front from Ron Miller which helped so much in changing it from a depressing cover to a colorful one. The back I used suggestions from Maggie. It's the second cover I've made using the one piece cover template.
It's a well designed cover that catches the eye. I read the blurb on the back of the book and it sounds very interesting JN. I'll tell my son about it.
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Post by potet on Nov 4, 2020 19:26:02 GMT
The way I make my title and author on the spine is setting the cursor on the spine in the template and type it out. [...]
Congratulations. I have made my cover for my new book using the Lulu template they gave me. The dimensions are 357 x 235mm hence within the dimensions demanded : between 355.48mm and 358.65mm X between 233.36mm and 236.54mm. Yet my PDF is rejected. The way the message is written, I have the impression they expect the PDF to be turned vertically! LOL
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2020 0:51:03 GMT
I have made my cover for my new book using the Lulu template they gave me. The dimensions are 357 x 235mm hence within the dimensions demanded : between 355.48mm and 358.65mm X between 233.36mm and 236.54mm. Yet my PDF is rejected. View Attachment The way the message is written, I have the impression they expect the PDF to be turned vertically! LOL View AttachmentIt's the wrong size. Take their template, note the size in photoshop, resize your cover, drag the template onto it and move your content, if necessary, between the guidelines.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2020 4:13:02 GMT
potet that sounds so much like the trouble I had with my cover. I did everything as Maggie has suggested to you and still it was rejected. Then I realised it was the conversion to PDF that was going wrong, so I used a free online PDF converter and voila---- it was accepted! I hope you get your cover accepted.
PS. I used adobe free online converter.
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Post by potet on Nov 5, 2020 9:12:07 GMT
potet that sounds so much like the trouble I had with my cover. I did everything as Maggie has suggested to you and still it was rejected. Then I realised it was the conversion to PDF that was going wrong, so I used a free online PDF converter and voila---- it was accepted! I hope you get your cover accepted. PS. I used adobe free online converter. I created the whole cover with Photoshop starting from the template supplied by Lulu. Apparently my version of Photoshop cannot convert its files into PDF. So I created a page in Wordperfect of the dimensions required, and pasted the whole picture of the cover on it. WP has a direct facility that turns a WP file in a PDF. It worked, but it is this WP PDF file that has the wrong dimensions. I haven't discovered why yet.
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Post by tasmanianartist on Nov 5, 2020 10:10:14 GMT
potet that sounds so much like the trouble I had with my cover. I did everything as Maggie has suggested to you and still it was rejected. Then I realised it was the conversion to PDF that was going wrong, so I used a free online PDF converter and voila---- it was accepted! I hope you get your cover accepted. PS. I used adobe free online converter. I created the whole cover with Photoshop starting from the template supplied by Lulu. Apparently my version of Photoshop cannot convert its files into PDF. So I created a page in Wordperfect of the dimensions required, and pasted the whole picture of the cover on it. WP has a direct facility that turns a WP file in a PDF. It worked, but it is this WP PDF file that has the wrong dimensions. I haven't discovered why yet.
I have the same thing happening with word processing programs, and their mysterious conversion of sizes, but I can switch over to one of the PDF converters that are designed to convert to correct size. Use the one larika suggested, or the free 'doPDF' - I've used that one for over a decade without problems. In general, it is not a good idea to take an image file (such as the Photoshop-created cover), import/insert it into a word processing program, and then proceed to make it a PDF - while it theoretically should work, it usually does not. It is a peculiarity that I have not had the inclination to investigate ... if you save your Photoshop file into a JPG, and once you have installed the PDF converter, you can then open the JPG, and 'file' - 'print' and go through the process of printing (essentially saving) the jpg as PDF (you'll have to learn the menu and settings of the PDF printer/converter). I use iMac, your process might be called slightly different names if you use PC.
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Post by potet on Nov 5, 2020 17:10:58 GMT
Thanks a lot, I'll download 'doPDF'. Meanwhile I have reached my degree of incompetence as regards compatilibily with Lulu. This is what I get. As you can see Lulu accepts my PDF file, but the proportions are wrong, although the original had those required by Lulu.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2020 19:44:50 GMT
If you are prepared to post both the original PDF template from Lulu stating the dimensions and the full-size JPG you created for the cover based on that template then I'd be happy to take a look at them for you and see if I can spot any problems.
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Post by potet on Nov 5, 2020 23:55:29 GMT
Thanks a lot Bizzley. With pleasure. I'll do it tomorrow. It's now 00:55 in Paris.
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Post by JesusNinja on Nov 6, 2020 1:02:17 GMT
Thank you Larika! I did find some misspellings in it after I approved it. But if he can get over that I hope he enjoys it. Redoing the interior now to get it better proofread.
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Post by tasmanianartist on Nov 6, 2020 2:40:22 GMT
If you are prepared to post both the original PDF template from Lulu stating the dimensions and the full-size JPG you created for the cover based on that template then I'd be happy to take a look at them for you and see if I can spot any problems. Wow! That would challenge me as well. If at all possible, could you (@bizzley) please post the actual cause of the problem - we all have Lulu cover hangovers and any new insight as to what causes our PDFs to be rejected or so distorted would help. It looks as though there is an intermediate step between the photoshop file (the correctly sized jpg), and the uploaded PDF file, which corrupts potet's cover.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2020 4:29:24 GMT
I'm sure bizzley will be able to help you if your cover is rejected again potet. He and JesusNinja were most helpful to me when I was pulling out my grey hair with frustration when my cover kept on being rejected. Lulu told me ages ago that they were going to do something about their cover design.
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Post by JesusNinja on Nov 6, 2020 5:32:02 GMT
I created the whole cover with Photoshop starting from the template supplied by Lulu. Apparently my version of Photoshop cannot convert its files into PDF. So I created a page in Wordperfect of the dimensions required, and pasted the whole picture of the cover on it. WP has a direct facility that turns a WP file in a PDF. It worked, but it is this WP PDF file that has the wrong dimensions. I haven't discovered why yet.
I have the same thing happening with word processing programs, and their mysterious conversion of sizes, but I can switch over to one of the PDF converters that are designed to convert to correct size. Use the one larika suggested, or the free 'doPDF' - I've used that one for over a decade without problems. In general, it is not a good idea to take an image file (such as the Photoshop-created cover), import/insert it into a word processing program, and then proceed to make it a PDF - while it theoretically should work, it usually does not. It is a peculiarity that I have not had the inclination to investigate ... if you save your Photoshop file into a JPG, and once you have installed the PDF converter, you can then open the JPG, and 'file' - 'print' and go through the process of printing (essentially saving) the jpg as PDF (you'll have to learn the menu and settings of the PDF printer/converter). I use iMac, your process might be called slightly different names if you use PC. When you click on "Save As" is there not an option to save as a PDF in your Photoshop? I got an error like that in one hardback cover I did. I did like Maggie suggested and opened it in Photoshop and resized it to the dimensions in the error message. Saved that and re-uploaded. It worked then. Hard back covers are a pain to me. Mine still didn't look right and support didn't help at all.
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Post by potet on Nov 6, 2020 9:44:07 GMT
JesusNinja, Photoshop has no such particular facility. One just goes to "print" and select either an actual printer or a virtual one, the latter to create a PDF. So far, in PHOTOSHOP, I have tried the virtual printer of dopdf, of (Adobe)PRO (trial version) and of PDF995 (reliable and used for the contents of all my books). Although the dimensions of the final picture are those of the original Lulu template, the message is always the same: the dimensions of my uploaded PDF are inferior to those of the template. How can a PDF shrink the original JPG picture is extremely puzzling.
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Post by potet on Nov 6, 2020 9:57:36 GMT
If you are prepared to post both the original PDF template from Lulu stating the dimensions and the full-size JPG you created for the cover based on that template then I'd be happy to take a look at them for you and see if I can spot any problems. Hello Bizzley. Thanks for your proffered help. Here is the template: WRITGRAM-COVER-00-m5jj9p-cover-template.pdf (227.18 KB)I have added the prefix "WRITGRAM-COVER-00-" to the original title. I cannot upload my JPG picture of the whole cover in this forum because it is too large. Its dimensions are: width 359.5mm X height 236.5mm. The resulting PDF whether with doPDF, with (Adobe)Pro or with PDF995 has the same dimensions on my computer. As I already said above, Lulu rejects my PDF because the dimensions of what it receives are only "209.90mm x 297.04mm"!
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