SBC+ Tips & Techniques: Home Ribbon - Saving & Importing Pages

Have you ever wished you could use one of your favorite layouts in another project?  Or would you like to create some borders or other decorations that could be used again and changed to suit the project?  You CAN do all that and more - here's how!

1. Duplicate the page you'd like to save.
2. Remove all images (right click each box and choose 'remove photo from frame'), papers (just fill the selected shapes with shades of gray), text (remove text; leave text boxes if desired), and embellishments (you can leave these if integral to the page, although you may want to fill them with shades of white or gray) from the duplicate page.  This will leave you with a 'gray box' page.  All elements should be 'live'.  Save your changes to this page. [NOTE: Do NOT use 'save pages as' - just save the page as normal!]
3. Create a blank Storybook project specifically for saving templates and pages.  I have created books like this for each size Storybook.  I name mine "Sample 12", "Sample 11", "Sample 8", etc. based on the page size.  Save it in the same place you save your other Storybook projects. 
4. Open the new project (Sample 12) and on the Home ribbon, click 'Import Pages'. The "Get pages from folders" dialog box will appear.  Scroll through the directory of folders that appears until you find your Storybook Projects.  Open the one that contains the original and new 'gray box' pages.
5. All of the pages from that Storybook will show up in the window to the right of the directory.  Scroll through until you find your new 'gray box' page. [NOTE: If the pages shown have a red X on them, they are not the same size as the book you are trying to import them into and you will not be able to select them. Just check to make sure you've opened the right size project!]  Select the page(s) you want to import, and then click "Get Pages."  The page will show up as the last page in your open project.
6. After you have imported the 'gray box' page into your Sample project, be sure to remove it from the original Storybook.
7. When you want to use a page from your Sample book, simply import it into the desired project as described in steps 4 and 5.  For more information on this, please refer to your SBC+ User Guide (click on the yellow button with the question mark in it at the top right of the Storybook screen).  This information can be found on page 100 of the User Guide.
8. You can create whole books of live pages like this, and you can make pages of borders or other decorations as well.  Remember not to add photos or papers to your Sample book pages - you'll want to store them here for use over and over.
9. As always, have fun with it!

Comments

[Laurie Twibell]

I like the idea of sample books. I reuse layout ideas as well but I go to the page I want to duplicate, unlock the background page, hit Control A (select all), Control C (copy), go to the new page and Control V (paste). Then I replace the pictures and change the elements.

[Suzy Fitch]

I use layout templates all the time, and I have even created them in Storybook Creator Plus from books I own. I like double-page speads, but when I tried to import a double-page spread from my "templates" storybook I had created, the pages were not in order - they were all mixed up in the folder. I couldn't easily find the double-page spreads that matched.

I discovered that the software saves the individual pages of your storybook with random file names like "6d4e560c-a9da-4159-9bb4-2b7939f33703.page" inside the storybook folder on your computer. The software then displays the pages on your "import page" screen in alphabetical order according to the file names instead of in the order they appear in the actual storybook I created.

The solution: Using Windows Explorer, browse to the place on your computer where your storybooks are saved. Open the storybook your templates were created in, and rename each page file (****.page) with a file name you will recognize with a page number the page falls on (for example: Template page 1a.page, Template page 1b.page). Now when you import a page from this storybook, the pages will be in the alphabetical order you chose by renaming each .page file.

I have also noticed that you can remove the .page files from the storybook folder and put them all in their own folder (no longer in a "storybook" project). You can still browse to this new folder and import pages from it without them being located in a "Storybook".

Suzy

[Terri]

Thanks for showing us how to do this. You have unleashed an animal in me, and all I can do is create page templates now! Love this!!!!