How to Design an Heirloom Book

This type of book is a bit different than artbooks/albums because it doesn't open flat and starts with a right hand side page rather than a full spread. You should consider this book to be perfect for one image per side designs and lots of pages.

To create a DESIGN LAYOUT for the pages of your Heirloom Book, we offer our own INTEGRATED QT HEIRLOOM DESIGN TOOL that is free and easy to use (COMING VERY VERY SOON!)

OR, you can use a professional software like Fundy Designer, Pixellu SmartAlbums, or PhotoShop as long you follow these rules:

  1. The Heirloom book is not lay-flat therefore you need to design pages instead of spreads (you might see spreads in SmartAlbums or other software, 1 spread = 2 pages).
  2. Your margins should be set 20 mm from each edge of the design page.
  3. Design for the size you are printing, page files will not scale up or down to other sizes.
  4. Designs with pictures crossing over the middle are not advised.
  5. To print your beautiful design we need single pages delivered in one PDF.
  6. Our color space profile is AdobeRGB or sRGB

File Requirements for Pages:
heirloom design table.png

PHOTOWRAP VERSION - TO CREATE A CUSTOM PHOTO COVER, PLEASE VISIT - https://qtalbums.reamaze.com/articles/photowrap-heirloom-book

Pixellu SmartAlbums:

SmartAlbums is great for Heirloom designs without any tweaks. Please follow the instructions for 8x12" (20x30cm) Vertical Heirloom book below.

Keep in mind that you can't scale the end file to smaller or bigger sizes.

For export, please select PDF as output format and export as SINGLE pages

VIDEO - How to Design QT Heirloom Book in SmartAlbums Software (plus PhotoWrap)

Albums Specs pixellu.png
Albums Specs pixellu export.png

Highly Recommended is to design one picture per page, why such a simple design? You will get the best presentation of the pictures, they will just look marvelous in this kind of design!

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Oct 14, 2025

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