Software program that can import photos into a yearbook?

October 12, 2006 3:16 PM

Is there a software program that can import photos and text into a nice yearbook-style template to create a book that can be printed out and binded?

My CEO had asked for a photo directory of all of our employees (roughly 300) with their names and start dates. The first version was created using Microsoft Word and was very tedious to update as every time a new employee started, every table cell shifted over thereby affecting page and layout styles. Is there a program out there (preferably freeware) that can import pictures and accompanying text (like from a spreadsheet) into a nice yearbook-style template? This would be for a physical manual to be printed and binded on the side.

posted by pinksoftsoap to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Automagically? Probably not as much as you'd like, but you can do this with, well, a yearbook company.

And if you don't want them to bind it, you should know that they typically use PageMaker for the layout.
posted by plinth at 3:39 PM on October 12, 2006

You could try Tabblo. It seems like you can add text and the like (but I haven't done it myself, so I can't vouch for its ease of use). Here's an example.

You can even create an e-mail address especially for the project that allows others to submit pictures directly to Tabblo.
posted by parilous at 4:14 PM on October 12, 2006

I've never heard of Tabblo, but it sounds similar to a feature at the online Kodak Gallery. I think, though, that their books may be a bit more on the album side of things. You still may want to check it out.

If you could do the layout yourself, you may also want to look into any printers in your area.
posted by youngergirl44 at 6:03 PM on October 12, 2006

I think what ou want is free desktop publishing software, like Scribus. I'm pretty sure you can connect it to a datasource like a spreadsheet.

Even this might be overkill. IF everything (including photos) is in a spreadsheet in an organized fashion, you could probably use a report generator like JasperReports, and do the layout in a GUI from here. The first two are good.

Basically with a reporting tool, you layout one employee, where the picture goes, where the writeupgoes, etc, and it handles the pagination etc. Once you like the way it looks, you're done, and when you add a new employee you add tehm to the spreadsheet adn the report tool will put them where they belong alphabetically or whatever sort you use.

Also, I'd recommend you put the employye stuff in a database.

If you're office has crystal reports it does the same thing as jasperreports, but it's better.

Also, as an aside, Microsfot word can do this through mailmerge, though it's extremely clumsy.
posted by Pastabagel at 7:30 PM on October 12, 2006

I am sure you can come up with a script to do this using Jalbum.
posted by Monkey0nCrack at 8:34 AM on October 13, 2006

Tabblo looks like a lovely program; however, it seems to be primarily web-based and I need something that will print out into a hard copy publication.
posted by pinksoftsoap at 11:17 AM on October 13, 2006

Scribus and JasperReports both seem to be overkill for me.. any simpler suggestions?
posted by pinksoftsoap at 11:20 AM on October 13, 2006