Hot Print Actions

Hot Print Actions

Photo Layout Pro allows you to export the 'Active Layout' or the entire 'Album Collection' to folders as high resolution JPEG images with a single click of the mouse.

This has two helpful uses:

To utilize this feature, you create as many 'Hot Print Buttons' as you want, as shown in the diagram below.

Fig 1.

To create your 'Hot Print Buttons', simple select 'Tools->Hot Print Actions' from the menu. 'Hot Print Buttons' are created using the 'Edit Hot Print Actions' dialog window shown below:

Fig 2.

The list box labeled 'Hot Folder Buttons' in the diagram contains the details of all hot folder buttons that have been set up.

To add a new 'Hot Folder Button' simply press the 'Add' button.

To edit an existing 'Hot Folder Button', select the desired 'Hot Folder Button' from the list, and press edit.

To remove a 'Hot Folder Button', select the desired 'Hot Folder Button' from the list, and press delete.

The order that 'Hot Folder Buttons' appear in this list is the same order that they will be displayed in the main window (Fig 1). To change the order of the buttons, simply select a button from the hot folder list, and press either 'Move Up' or 'Move Down'.

The folders that the currently selected 'Hot Folder Button' outputs to are displayed in the list marked 'Hot Folders' in Fig 2.

Changing the Properties of a Hot Folder Button

Once you either press add, or edit from the 'Edit Hot Print Actions' dialog window, the 'Edit Hot Print Action' dialog window will appear as show in the diagram below:

Fig 3.

The elements of this dialog window are described below.

Name

Enter some descriptive text into the 'Name' text box for your future reference

Button Text

Enter the text that you wish to appear on the button into the 'Button Text' text box.

Filename Prefix

When the high resolution JPEG images are placed into the hot folder, you have the ability to append some text to the beginning of the filename. Enter the text that you wish to append into the 'Filename Prefix' text box.

Save to Hot Print Folder

You can configure your 'Hot Folder Button' to print either the 'Active Layout', or the entire contents of the 'Album Collection'. Select the configuration you wish to use from the 'Save to Hot Print Folder' radio buttons.

Folders

You can configure your 'Hot Folder Button' to output high resolution JPEG images into one or more folders.

To add a new folder, simply click 'Add', then select the desired folder.

To remove a folders, simply select the folder from the folders list, then press 'Delete'.

Using the Hot Folders you have Created to Print Images.

Once you have set up your hot folders in Photo Layout, you should then configure your Hot Folder Compatible printer, or use Chiizu Image Printer (www.eventphotosoftware.com) to produce the appropriate sized print from that hot folder.

Example

In the example shown in Fig 3, we have set up a combo print button.

This button will place a copy of the 'Active Layout' into both D:\Print Queues\4x6 and D:\Print Queues\8x10.

We then used Chiizu Image Printer (www.eventphotosoftware.com) to configure our printer to print 4x6 size prints of D:\Print Queues\4x6 and 8x10 prints of D:\Print Queues\8x10.

Once this was set up, we simple press the '4x6, 8x10 Combo' button (Fig 1.) and the active layout immediately prints to both a 4x6 and a 8x10 image on our printer. We then sell this as a combo package.