GCU Forum - NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text

Tom_133317

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Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text
Reply #30 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 8:40am

Thanks for the comments on the video. I was flying a bit blind but wanted to do one to at least get people started.

Has anyone gone thru the process of ordering one to see what a shopper experiences? It looks to me that the card appears to the shopper the same as any other card. undecided

How will they know about the various custom areas??

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Doreen_137017

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Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text
Reply #31 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 8:44am

Quote from Natalie_152060 on Aug 5^th, 2011, 7:39am:

Quote from Joan_135833 on Aug 5^th, 2011, 7:16am:

Quote from Natalie_152060 on Aug 5^th, 2011, 3:21am:

There is a reasonable selection of text fonts and colours but it might be nice to have greater editing abilities for the text i.e. if people want to add a big 'MERRY CHRISTMAS' followed by smaller text for 'with love from the Johnsons' so that all the text they add doesn't have to have the same size / font.
Cheers - Natalie

Natalie, this can be accomplished by setting up a separate text field for each variation in font/size/color.

Good point, but I don't think that would be an easy option for the customers. I think it would be much easier if they had one text box for their text, and then they have the option to highlight whichever words they've typed that they'd like to choose a different size / font / colour for? Unless of course the design is such that there are two very distinct areas for typing text into.

Customer's at Zazzle don't have an issue with it and in fact my experience is that the easier customization is, i.e. just replace this text with your text, the more you sell. The more complicated it is, i.e. the customer has to change font size, color and so on, the less customers you have.

When offering personalization of a product, you want it to be so simple that a 100-year-old grandma can do it the first time she's on a computer Grin

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Doreen_137017 Gold Member artist Posts: 5273	Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text Reply #32 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 8:47am Mindy: One other thought... Could we add this category Holidays > Christmas > Photo Cards > Pets Thanks!
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Joan_135833

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Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text
Reply #33 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 8:55am

Quote from Tom_133317 on Aug 5^th, 2011, 8:40am:

Thanks for the comments on the video. I was flying a bit blind but wanted to do one to at least get people started.

Has anyone gone thru the process of ordering one to see what a shopper experiences? It looks to me that the card appears to the shopper the same as any other card. undecided

How will they know about the various custom areas??

We were told that the customer interface will only be implemented at the beginning of September, so probably it's not yet possible to see the features as they ultimately will appear.

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Sandra_133229

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Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text
Reply #34 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 10:01am

Well done on the video, Tom! I am wading through my first card, and am running into a glitch! Sad

My text box that I have set up - while it looks correct, and the coordinates appear correct, the text box itself is squished to the left of the screen, and the text is also squished, unreadable. I can't seem to get it to look correct. The preview box show my text as blank. However, the little square showing what my text says, is visible in the text properties. One time, I actually say the text in the preview, but have not seen it since. There is a little gremlin visiting my card Huh

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Penny_134243

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Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text
Reply #35 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 10:10am

Quote from Tom_133317 on Aug 5^th, 2011, 8:40am:

Thanks for the comments on the video. I was flying a bit blind but wanted to do one to at least get people started.

Has anyone gone thru the process of ordering one to see what a shopper experiences? It looks to me that the card appears to the shopper the same as any other card. undecided

How will they know about the various custom areas??

Hi, Tom,

Not yet, but you read my mind! Scary!

I'll let you (and everyone else know.)

Penny

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Doreen_137017

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Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text
Reply #36 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 10:23am

Quote from Sandra_133229 on Aug 5^th, 2011, 10:01am:

Well done on the video, Tom! I am wading through my first card, and am running into a glitch! Sad

My text box that I have set up - while it looks correct, and the coordinates appear correct, the text box itself is squished to the left of the screen, and the text is also squished, unreadable. I can't seem to get it to look correct. The preview box show my text as blank. However, the little square showing what my text says, is visible in the text properties. One time, I actually say the text in the preview, but have not seen it since. There is a little gremlin visiting my card Huh

You have to do the Preview to see it properly. It says that on the screen somewhere. I had the same occurrence, but in Preview it's perfect.

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Sandra_133229

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Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text
Reply #37 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 10:29am

I finally got the preview working. I was using a white font. It seemed to show the preview correctly with a color font, but with white, the preview blanked out. After playing around with various colors, the white is now showing up on the preview also. However, without the preview, most of the time, the text box is really squished. Then on occasion, at least a semblance of the text is visible in the edit view.

This is a great tool, but like anything on the internet, or websites, it takes a while to figure out, then hopefully it will be smooth sailing!

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Penny_134243

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Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text
Reply #38 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 10:46am

Greetings!

Is there a way to create a card, so the entire cover is filled with a photo? I tried to do this, but all of the stock images are too small, and when I resized them, there was a white border, top and bottom, that filled in the gap.

To explain:

I made a template that has stars along the bottom, and my 'brilliant' idea was to have the photo full bleed on the card cover with the stars floating toward the bottom of the card. It seemed that no amount of moving or resizing the photo would 'stick' so I just changed my template, and created a frame and border. But for future cards, would it be possible to get photos that are the size of the card covers?

Or, if someone has an idea of how I can make this work, using the existing photos, please let me know.

Thanks!

Penny

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Mindy

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Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text
Reply #39 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 2:22pm

Quote from Joan_135833 on Aug 5^th, 2011, 6:58am:

Quote from Mindy on Aug 4^th, 2011, 10:08pm:

My suggestion is for you to put your card in the following to cover both bases:
Holidays >> Christmas >> Season's Greetings
and
Holidays >> Christmas >> Photo Cards / Your Photo Here

Thank you, Mindy. Not to belabor the point (and I hope I'm not being obtuse), but I thought that photo cards were only meant to go into a specifically stipulated photo card category. Does your advice mean that we may now place photo cards in any subject-appropriate category as a second choice?

Again, please forgive me - I just want to be sure about this before proceeding.

Thank you so much!

Yes, exactly. Photo Cards MUST be in at least 1 Photo Card category. The second category can be another fitting Photo Card category OR an occasion or subject matter specific category.

For example two fitting Photo Card categories would be:
Holidays >> Christmas >> Photo Cards / Your Picture Here
and
Collections >> Photo Cards / Your Picture Here >> Christmas

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Mindy

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Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text
Reply #40 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 2:24pm

Quote from Tom_133317 on Aug 5^th, 2011, 8:40am:

Thanks for the comments on the video. I was flying a bit blind but wanted to do one to at least get people started.

Has anyone gone thru the process of ordering one to see what a shopper experiences? It looks to me that the card appears to the shopper the same as any other card. undecided

How will they know about the various custom areas??

Tom, lots of video viewers!

All of these new cards will be Private until we rollout the shopper interface (est 9/1) that lets them place their own photos so until then it's business as usual with the existing "old style" photo cards (ask the artist to do the dirty work).

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Sandra_133229

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Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text
Reply #41 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 2:31pm

Mindy, I still need just a bit of clarification with the categories. I thought if a card was in a Christmas category, that it could not be in another Christmas category?

Then, it can also be in a non photo category, is that what you are saying? It could be for example, Christmas photo, and the second one could be Christmas> Snow. (Even though it is a photo card with a snow bkg.)

Sorry for being so dense, but I also just want to make sure...
thanks!

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Mindy

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Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text
Reply #42 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 2:41pm

Quote from Mary_140624 on Aug 5^th, 2011, 4:43am:

I cannot find "custom front cards" in the Create a card process..can anyone help , or am I just a bit slow !..also the custom front card video does not seem to work..perhaps it is jammed with too many people clicking on to it!

You will only be presented with this new field "Card Front" if the image you've uploaded is a PNG file type. Might that have been this issue?

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Tom_133317 Gold Member artist Posts: 2169	Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text Reply #43 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 2:46pm Quote from Mindy on Aug 5^th, 2011, 2:41pm: You will only be presented with this new field "Card Front" if the image you've uploaded is a PNG file type. Might that have been this issue? So why not make it automatic "custom" if a png is uploaded, (have no field option)?
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Mindy

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Re: NEW - Custom Front Cards / Photo Cards & Text
Reply #44 - Aug 5^th, 2011, 2:50pm

Quote from Penny_134243 on Aug 5^th, 2011, 10:46am:

Greetings!

Is there a way to create a card, so the entire cover is filled with a photo? I tried to do this, but all of the stock images are too small, and when I resized them, there was a white border, top and bottom, that filled in the gap.

To explain:

I made a template that has stars along the bottom, and my 'brilliant' idea was to have the photo full bleed on the card cover with the stars floating toward the bottom of the card. It seemed that no amount of moving or resizing the photo would 'stick' so I just changed my template, and created a frame and border. But for future cards, would it be possible to get photos that are the size of the card covers?

Or, if someone has an idea of how I can make this work, using the existing photos, please let me know.

Thanks!

Penny

I see what you mean. These could be some really nice designs

If you set the transparent zone as the full size of the card then choose a rectangular photo and pull it big enough to cover the entire cover (or even bigger) it should work. Having the placeholder photo spill over the edge of the cover is ok. Squares images work too but require more resizing and moving, which is ok.

Give it another go and let us know how it goes.

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