3.1. Making a new book

There are several ways to make a new Sophie book. You can go to the File menu and choose New Book, or you can press command/control-N. Both of these options will present you with a dialogue box asking for the size of the book you want. At the top of this window is a drop-down menu with some predefined sizes; if you don’t like any of those sizes, you can enter any width and height you like in the fields below.

Sophie books can be as big as you like; however, if the book is larger than the Sophie window, it will have scroll bars and you won’t be able to see all of it at once. Another way to create a new Sophie book is to drag a frame or a resource to the workspace. A new book will be created containing just that frame or resource. You can drag resources either from the resource palettes of an existing book or from your computer directly into Sophie.

3.2. Using book templates

You can also create a new Sophie book by dragging a book template to the workspace. Book templates are found in the book templates palette in the components tab; some book templates come with Sophie, and some are found in your local book templates directory. Book templates contain frames and backgrounds; it’s easier to start with a book template than it is to start from scratch. If you drag a book template onto a page of another Sophie book, a new book will be created that is inside of the existing book. This is called an embedded book.

3.3. Making book templates

To make a book template, go to the File menu and choose Save Book Template. By default you’ll be taken to the default book template directory; book templates that are saved in this directory appear in the book templates palette. When a book is saved as a book template, most content is deleted; essentially a book template is a collection of empty pages and frames ready for text insertion. Book templates can’t contain links or timelines in Sophie 1.0; if you try to save a book as a book template that contains links or timelines, a warning will appear and you will not be permitted to save the book template.

On the Mac, the default book template directory is /Users/username/Library/Application Support/Sophie/library/book-templates, where username is the username of the account you’re logged in under. On Windows, the default book template directory is C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Sophie\library\book-templates, where username is the username of the account you’re logged in under. On Linux, the default book template directory is TK.

You don’t have to save book templates from inside Sophie to make the templates appear in this directory. If you manually move book templates into the default book template directory, they will appear in the book templates palette the next time you restart Sophie.

You can’t delete book templates from inside Sophie; if you want to get rid of your book templates, you need to go to the default book template and delete the books from there. Some of the templates that appear in the book templates palette can’t be deleted because they come with Sophie.

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