Photos for Mac and iOS: The Missing Manual

Chapter 9. Creating Custom Books, Calendars, and Cards

Welcome to one of the most rewarding chapters in this book. There’s nothing like the satisfaction of handcrafting a printed project you can hold in your hands, and Photos lets you do just that. The books, calendars, and cards you can create in Photos are among the most beautiful printed products available. While you can order the same kinds of photo-based products from various companies, the ease in which you can build and customize them in Photos is unmatched. Same for the print and paper quality you get from Apple, even though they’re not technically the ones who do the printing (the identity of their printer is a closely guarded secret). Even the packaging they arrive in is awesome—they’re stylishly swathed in white, Apple-logoed envelopes. Photos’ built-in book, calendar, and card themes aren’t cheesy, either; they’re professionally designed and drop-dead gorgeous.

Books come in a variety of sizes and greeting cards can be folded, flat, or letterpress (where the ink is physically pressed into the paper). Many of the card themes are designed with a family newsletter in mind, which makes that yearly ritual feel more enjoyable and less like a chore. You can order as many cards you want, whether that’s one or one hundred. For calendars, you pick how many pages you want and which month they start with, as well as which country-specific holidays to include. You can also include items from OS X’s Calendar app such as birthdays and ...