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Step 1: Importing & Initial Layout
Step 1: Importing & Initial Layout

Creating your first project

Kirsi avatar
Written by Kirsi
Updated over 2 months ago

Hello and Welcome to Designrr,

I'm super excited that you have found your way here. In this 4 step mini tutorial I am going to show exactly what you need to do to create your very first ebook. And the best part, if you follow what I show you, it will take you less than 2 minutes to create your ebook.

Let's get started.

1 - IMPORT YOUR CONTENT

The first thing you need to do is import your content into Designrr. Your content should be finished and formatted correctly.


Designrr is a tool for laying out the design quickly and easily.  You should have your content ready, spell checked and in a clean format, or from a blog URL that's been published.

Steps for importing content:

1. Click on the '+Create' button.

2. Select the import option.

Next, choose in which format the ebook should be published. There are several options, and you can always change it before publishing, or you can decide later. I'll go with PDF. Now, you can select Import from Blogpost or URL as your baseline.

Note: In this case I am selecting 'Import from Blog Post', but if you want to import from PDF click here or from Word DOCX click here to learn how to prepare your Word file before importing. Then return to this tutorial, so you can understand the basics.

3. Enter the URL of your article and click on 'Add'.

Once the article has been imported you will see this: now you can choose if you want to import more blog posts or URLs.

Otherwise, click on the 'Apply' button.

Next, select a theme for the topic of your ebook. I want this book to be about digital marketing.

If you don't find a theme for your ebook in the topics list click on the 'Let's Start' button. You can select any template and simply change the cover image for other more fitting from our image database to make it match the theme of your ebook.

Finally, click on the 'Let's Start' button.

4. The Docs Editor

All imports in Designrr are saved in the 'Docs'. After you click on the 'Let's Start' button in the previous step, you are redirected to this section where you can see the imported content.

This is the preferred text editor to use after the content has been imported to Designrr.

We strongly suggest that you spend some time in this section reading the imported content, fixing spelling and grammar errors, or if you plan to add or modify some of the content.

This is also a good time to check your headings, as these, have to be H2 for the chapters and H3 for the sub-chapters. These values are need for the table of contents.

Don't forget to save the changes often.

After you have completely finished editing the content for your ebook is time to generate the project by clicking on the 'Choose a template' blue button.

5. You will be prompted to choose a template.

There are two types of templates: Dynamic or PRO and Regular or Standard

For this project we are going to use a regular template. Select your page size and choose a template.

Don't get hung up on templates. Your choice of template here is NOT critical. You can change it afterwards quickly and easily, however only the Regular templates can be changed, the dynamic templates, once selected, cannot be changed.

For your first project I recommend the 'Plain Vanilla' template.

Once you click on the template thumbnail you will be able to preview the template. This is mainly to see the colors and fonts - keep in mind that at this point there is no content imported therefore the template is still empty.

Click on 'Use this Template'. Your project will be automatically loaded in the editor. As well, a copy saved in the Docs section.

2 - CHANGE COVER IMAGE

All of our templates come with professionally designed covers. You are free to use those, however, you may also want to add your own cover or simply swap out the image.

This is what my cover looks like now:

In this case I want to swap out the image, as well, clean up the text. I will do the text first.

Steps for changing the cover image:

  1. Click on the image icon in the toolbar to open the 'Media Manager' .

The 'Media Manager' will open in the left sidebar. You will see pre-populated images based on the project tags that you previously selected.

If you want to add images from your computer click on 'My Images' and then the 'Upload an image' button located at the bottom of the sidebar.

All the images you upload will be accessible in this area. You can create folders to organize them. Move them from one folder to another. And here is also where you access the image editor.

You also have 'Search' where you can search thousands of images in any niche.

You can filter the results by image orientation.

2. For our tutorial — let's use the search term 'books'.

Then click on the image you would like to use.

3. Clean up and edit. While I think the cover looks fine, I do want to change the text color.

Here you can see the final result of my cover.

3 - HEADERS AND FOOTERS

Let's change up the headers and footers.

Change the background color:

  1. Click anywhere in the colored area of the header or footer (in our case it is white but will vary depending on the template you chose). This 'activates' the respective container. Make note of the word 'activates' as we use it regularly in our tutorials. All it means is to turn on the ability to make changes to that container. You will know that it is activated when you see a border around it.

2. Click on 'Background' in the sidebar. Here you will see the option to change the color. 

IMPORTANT: If you want all the headers changed globally with one click make sure the 'Make Changes To All Elements' is selected. Do the same for any container where you want to make global changes to.

3. Click on the 'Color' option and choose the color that you want. You can also insert an RGB or HEX code to match your company colors.

You can turn the headers and footers on and off in the Pro and Premium plans. Learn more about that HERE.

TIP: If you don't want headers and footers in your ebook - then change the background color to white, and delete the text in them.

4 - PAGE NUMBERS (turning them on and off)

There are 2 ways to turn on and off page numbering.

Here's how:

  1. Click on 'Settings' in the sidebar and expand 'Page Numbering'. Here you will see an on/off toggle button. 

OR click on any footer and click the Page Number Icon

HELPFUL ARTICLES

The Designrr Templates

eBooks, eBook Formats and Flipbooks

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