Templates & template editor

The arrows at the top of the canvas cycle spread templates; the arrows over each page cycle that page on its own. Or click any template in the panel on the right.

New in 1.4.0, justified layouts are not templates. A template is a fixed set of boxes drawn in advance, and your photos get cropped to whatever shapes it has. A justified layout is calculated on the spot for the exact photos on your spread: BookProofs reads each photo's aspect ratio, then solves the rows, columns and page splits so every photo keeps its full frame and every gap lands at your project's image gap. Across 25 styles - Rows, Columns, By page, Mosaic, Feature image, Wide image across the top, Gallery inset and more - and every mix of portraits, landscapes and squares, that adds up to tens of thousands of possible layouts, each one shaped to the spread in front of you. Nothing is cropped to fit, and the layout stays exact when you change the image gap or duplicate the project to a different size. Justified layouts show up in the Templates panel alongside the built-in templates, marked with a small badge - hover it to see the style's name.

Click the layout fit button next to Filter at the top of the Templates panel, or press L to switch. Best fit (on by default) lists the layouts that suit your photos' aspect ratios, best matches first, mixing justified layouts with the built-in templates that crop your photos the least - and photos you drop onto a spread go into one of the top matches. Full library shows every template for the photo count, with that spread's justified layouts after them, and works the way the panel always has.

Best fit works page by page too. Switch the Templates panel to L PAGE or R PAGE and it lists the best layouts for the photos on that page, including justified layouts sized to that page's photos. Dropping photos onto a page picks a layout for that page the same way.

On a justified layout, Remove Image Gap (right-click a photo) and Remove Gap at Book Gutter are unavailable, because each photo's space is calculated from its aspect ratio and the project's image gap together. To change the spacing, change the image gap in Settings - justified layouts re-fit to the new gap exactly. To use those controls, switch the spread to a built-in template, or go into the Template Editor (E) and make any change to the layout. The moment you edit it, the justified layout becomes your own custom layout and the gap controls work again. Opening and closing the editor without changing anything leaves it justified.

Hover a template in the panel and the canvas shows what it would look like. Click to lock it in.

Star a spread or page template and it shows up under the Favorites filter, so your go-to layouts are one click away in every project.

Filter by spread, left page, right page, favorites or custom. By default the panel also filters to the number of photos on the spread you're on. As of 1.4.0 the layout fit button next to Filter switches between Best fit, which lists the best-fitting layouts first, and Full library, which shows every template - press L to toggle.

Change the image-count filter above the templates panel to see layouts for a different number of photos, then pick one.

Moving from seven photos to a four-photo template drops three of them, and BookProofs warns you first. Better to remove the three you don't want yourself, so you choose which go.

Press E to go into the template editor and E again to come out. You need to exit before you can carry on designing the rest of the book.

In the template editor, copy a placeholder and paste to get another at exactly the same aspect ratio, anywhere on the canvas.

Blue lines snap to the center of the page, red to other placeholder edges, yellow to equal spacing between photos. The toolbar shows what's snapping and why as it happens.

Each snap type is color-coded in the template editor toolbar and can be switched off on its own if it's fighting your image placement.

In the template editor, drag a corner of an image placeholder to resize it and keep the aspect ratio. Hold Shift to resize freely and ignore aspect ratio. Select several placeholders first and they resize together.

In the template editor, right-click an image placeholder and choose Set aspect ratio for an exact 1:1, 4:3, 4:5 and so on - useful when you want to be sure rather than eyeball it.

In the template editor, use Save to template library and choose spread, left page or right page. You only need this if you want the layout in other projects - within your current project it gets saved to your spread as soon as you exit template editor.

Saved templates are available in every project, but one built for a 12x12, for example, won't land at identical proportions in a different aspect ratio project. You can still use it, but it's recommended to adjust in the template editor if you want to maintain the originally designed aspect ratio in the new project dimensions.

If the panel only shows your own layouts, switch the filter off Custom to see the built-in templates again.

If you change templates with shortcuts instead, the on-screen arrows can be switched off in settings to clean up the canvas.