When I found Smilebooks, I went onto their website and saw they offer a free photobook to new customers. Smilebooks sent me the promo code, and I downloaded the software and spent hours creating a beautiful photobook. When I went to order it, the submit button was below the bottom of my screen and could not be resized. I called customer service and was told that because I have a laptop, I could not order a photobook from them. I asked him how much business they were losing, as most of the population uses laptops these days! I asked if I could email the file, and he said no. He also told me that it clearly says on their website that laptops are not compatible, and I looked and could not find anything stating that (on download page or create photobook page). It was the worst customer service I have received in a long time. I emailed the company about it but would NEVER use or recommend them to anyone.

seg2d

USA

Smilebooks photobooks software is the best photo album software out on the market today. I tried them all - Kodak, snapfish, picaboo, mypublisher, walgreens, shutterfly... And none of the others had the level of customization available through the smilebooks software. Picaboo came close, but their prices are higher and quality is lower. With smilebooks, the layouts are fully customizable. Place images and text ANYWHERE, at any angle, and text in any color. Use images as backgrounds, or any other image file on your computer. You can even zoom in on background photos and adjust the portion of the picture that shows up as the background (which picaboo did not offer). They have creative image masks that crops an image into many fun shapes, or fades the edges, or creates a frame. They even offer some free backgrounds and clip art if you are in need of them. I prefer to use images as backgrounds. They offer various sizes for photobooks, and will soon be offering online-only software so various people around the world can collaborate on the same photobook. I'm excited about their new silver halide photo paper and true lay-flat binding (which picaboo does have) for my wedding album. I'll have to review that aspect once I finish making my album and I see it in person. Also, I am learning never to order a photobook from them without some type of coupon code. I signed up for their newsletter and get emails about new coupons 1 to 2 times per month. If you don't have a coupon and want to order a photobook, do a google search for "smilebooks coupon" and see if you can get one that way. They offer coupons through facebook and twitter, too. Hope this helps!

MrsGenius

Fresno, CA

I was looking for a service that would help me design a book and also allow me to insert pages of text along with my photos.   I'd originally figured I would use iPhoto but soon discovered the limitations do not allow for inserting long blocks of text.   Using the Smilebooks design service was a bit of process if you are picky and want to go back an forth with the designers (as I did 4 times) with revisions, but in the end, the book was really lovely and they did make all the changes I requested.   Pros:  + Design service allowed me to send a Word file of text that they manually interspersed with photos. + Design service even made some text edits for me when I spotted my own typos. + The quality of the book is high.  (I chose reg paper; 12x12 size) + Design service allows you to send them a huge batch of photos and they will pick the best quality if you don't have time. + Design service actually figured out where to lay text nearly correctly on the first time because I had labeled my photos to correspond.  (That is, they took the time to read what I'd labelled) + Design service will let you add extra pages if you need them mid process.  (If you design yourself, you are stuck with the number of pages you pick from the beginning.) + Comment feature to designers is super easy to use. + They periodically have specials so you can save some money. Cons: - It can take about 2 days to get your next revision to look at once you submit comments to the designers. - The design service and the regular service are completely separate.  If you call the customer service number, they will not be able to tell you anything about your order.  The online status tracker didn't work for me; I assume because I was being tracked separately by design. - The book arrived tightly shrink-wrapped which dinged one corner.  (They say there is a replacement process which I haven't tried yet) - The book arrived in a box without tape and just hinged flaps so it could have been opened by anyone. - There was no way to track the shipping of my order that I could find.  I received a shipping notice by mail but only knew that it would take 6-10 days to arrive. - Cost of second book looks to be the same as first book.  I was hoping for a lower price to print a second one.  Again, design and regular services are separate, so I couldn't get a quote on the phone from customer service. - Somewhat pricey but you make your choice about whether it's worth it to have the design service.  Even without design it's pricey but the added flexibility of being able to lay in text made it worth it for me. There was NO currency conversion as that older review stated.  My book was shipped from the USA, also.  Comment

SC203

New York, NY