To check if there are any current problems with HotPrints, follow us on Twitter and check out our Facebook Wall

We keep our customers informed if the HotPrints application is down for any reason, with updates on our Facebook Wall and on Twitter. For any other questions, our Frequently Asked Questions are below.

HotPrints' Facebook Wall: http://www.facebook.com/hotprints Become a Fan to be kept up-to-date with new developments!
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/hotprints

Contact

If nothing is mentioned on the Facebook Wall or Twitter, and you can't find the answer to your question below, please email:
info@hotprints.com - for questions about the service.
orders@hotprints.com - for questions about your order. Please include your order number in the email.
support@hotprints.com - for problems accessing/using the application. Please let us know the operating system of your computer (i.e. Mac OSX, Windows XP, Windows 7, etc) the type of browser you are using (i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc), what version of the browser and what version of Flash plugin is installed in your browser.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you support Linux?

Currently, HotPrints software does not work on Linux.

Do you support Google Chrome?

As Google Chrome is currently a Beta version, we don't support it at the moment. We have also discovered some problems with Internet Explorer version 7.

What are the conditions of the "one free HotBook per month" offer?

With our current offer, every customer gets one free HotBook per month - no cost for printing or shipping.

When you get to the shopping cart, there will be no costs showing for one book per month.

Currently, the offer only applies to HotBooks shipped to addresses in the US, UK and Canada. However, our HotBooks and HotCalendars can be ordered from anywhere in the world!!!

How do I get my free HotBook? What is the promo code?

No promo code is required for the current offer. The free credit is applied automatically to your account, either when you sign up to www.hotprints.com or when you start using our application via Facebook (http://apps.facebook.com/hotprints).

When you get to the 'Shopping Cart' your HotBook will have no printing or shipping costs against it!

When will next month's free HotBook be available?

Each month's credit will be available from 2am PST (10am GMT) on the 1st day of the month.

If you already have a HotBook in your shopping cart, you may need to click 'Remove' next to it, and then click 'Add to cart' from the main page for the new credit to be applied to that book.

There are only 2 differences between the free and paid HotBooks. The free ones have the shipping address printed on the back cover, and they contain a 4-page information insert which is easily removable and does NOT interfere with the main photo pages of your HotBook - and that's it.  

What are the HotBooks and HotCalendars like - size, number of pages, specifications, etc?

HotBook photo books are 20cm wide by 25cm (or about 8" by 10").
There are 16 pages, including the covers.
All pages, including the covers, are printed on 170gsm Satimat Silk paper.

HotCalendars are 25cm wide by 20 cm (or about 10" by 8").
There are 26 pages, including the covers.
They are printed on 250gsm Satimat Silk paper.

Both HotBooks and HotCalendars are printed using high-quality, industry standard printers which are used for high-resolution printing by market leaders, giving a very high quality finish.

Are free books available in my country?

The offer of "one free book per month" is limited to postal addresses in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

We are currently unable to apply this offer for delivery to other countries, but we hope to be able to extend the offer in the future.

How long will it take to receive my order?

It takes up to 5 business days to print, pack and ship orders.

Once orders are shipped, delivery usually takes between 5 and 30 business days, but it all depends on the destination country's local postal service.

There is no tracking service, or a guaranteed delivery time.

We are not responsible for items lost in the post.

How can I find out the status of my order?

To check whether your order has been shipped, check the "Sent" tab on your main page of the HotPrints application. When an order has completed successfully, the status will show as 'Processing'. Then, when we have despatched your order, the status will change from 'Processing' to 'Shipped'.

The processing, printing and packaging process can take up to 5 business days.

What is the delivery method?

We use airmail. There is no tracking or guaranteed delivery time available.

Can I pay extra for express delivery?

We currently don't offer this option.

Can I amend/cancel my HotBook or HotCalendar after I've ordered it?

It is not possible to amend any orders, or cancel them, once they have been placed.

Our system processes orders immediately. Therefore, we cannot make any amendments or cancel any orders once the button "Complete Your Order" has been clicked or the payment process is completed.

This includes all aspects of the order from a misspelt text on a page, to an incorrect shipping address or recipient name.

Please ensure that your HotBook or HotCalendar is ready before you order it.
You can check every page by looking at the "Preview" or selecting "View Book" from the main page. You can also view a PDF file of your HotBook/HotCalendar - save your book/calendar and then click "Download".

Why am I being charged for my HotBook?

If you have a free HotBook credit but there are costs showing in the Shopping Cart, this could be for one of the following reasons:

1. The box "I want to pay for this order" is checked. This box is for customers who don't want the removable insert, or don't want the shipping address printed on the back cover. Uncheck this box and the costs should return to zero.
2. The shipping address is outside the USA, UK or Canada. At the moment, our one free HotBook per month only applies to addresses in the USA, UK and Canada.

When do you charge my credit card or PayPal account?

We don't charge until we ship your order. If you have sent a book to a friend and they don't complete their address we don't charge your account.

Can you amend my HotBook or HotCalendar before you ship it?

No, we cannot amend HotBooks or HotCalendars in any way (including the shipping address) once they have been ordered, because our order fulfilment system processes them immediately. Please check each page, including the front cover, before clicking to complete the order.

My order arrived and it's damaged! What can I do?

Return the damaged item to us and we will arrange a replacement to be shipped to you. Our address is:
HotPrints Ltd
St John's Innovation Centre
Cowley Road
Cambridge
CB4 0WS
United Kingdom

Can I get a refund?

Please email orders@hotprints.com if you're not happy with your order. Once we know what the problem is, we'll let you know how we can help. Please note though, that we only issue refunds in exceptional circumstances rather than as a matter of policy. We can only consider refunds if they are requested within 50 days of the payment.

Why I can't I upload my photos?

The maximum photo file size for upload is 10Mb. If your file is smaller than 10Mb, the error can sometimes appear if the network is slow - in which case, the photos will upload OK after retrying a few minutes later.

If that doesn't help, one solution we've found for certain photos that will not upload is to:

1. Open that photo in the "Windows Picture and Fax Viewer" application on a PC, or the "Preview" application on a Mac
2. Rotate the photo once to the right and then back to the left, so it is the right way up again
3. Save the photo

Often, once this has been done, the photo will upload without any problems.

If this doesn't help, log out, delete your browser cache and cookies, shut down the browser and then start the browser up again.

If you still can't upload a photo, please attach the following to an email to support@hotprints.com so we can then investigate what is happening:

1. A copy of one of the photos you are having problems uploading
2. A screenshot of your whole browser window showing your problem?

How do I add a new photo album?

Enter a new name in the "Album Name" box on the left, before clicking "Select Photos". The photos you now upload will be added to that new album.

How can I rotate or resize my photos?

The HotPrints application doesn't currently incorporate photo editing options. Therefore, you need to make any changes to your photo before you upload it and add it to a HotBook or HotCalendar.

How can I delete a photo from my account?

We don't yet have a delete feature in the HotPrints application. We do periodically delete used photos to free up space though, and nobody but you will have access to the photos you upload. (We are looking into ways that we can add this functionality in the future.)

Why can't I access my Facebook friends' photos, or see my "Tagged In" photos?

Unfortunately, Facebook have changed their privacy policies which means that we cannot allow Facebook customers to access their Facebook friends' photos. This also means that any HotBooks created in the past that contained friends' photos will not be available.

How can I delete a photo from my HotBook or HotCalendar?

At the moment, you cannot delete a photo from the HotBook or HotCalendar, but you can replace it - simply drag a different photo from the left and drop it over the top of the unwanted photo on the pages to the right. Or all the photos added to the book so far will be cleared if you click the "Start over" button.

How do I make sure my photos will look good when they are printed?

It's important to check that you are using photos of a high enough resolution for printing. Low resolution photos can look great on a computer screen but look awful when printed!!

If you aren't sure, the best way to check is to create your HotBook, wait for it to be 'rendered' and then click 'Download' and look through the PDF pages. Or you can click on "Preview" and check each photo there, as very bad quality ones will look blurry. As a rough guide, if your file is less than 60Kb or the picture size is less than 600 x 480, it will probably not print very well.

Why are there some blank pages at the end of my book?

When you select "Auto-fill", your photos will be added to your HotBook in order - if there are more spaces for photos than the number of photos you have selected, you will end up with blank pages! So make sure you check every page of your Book in the Preview before you order it. You can always upload/select more photos and drag them across to the empty photo spaces in the book to fill the spaces or, if you don't want to add any more photos, you can drag different Layouts from the left, with less photo spaces on the page.

Why isn't the text on the front cover of my HotBook the same as the HotBook name?

The HotBook name isn't added to the front cover's text automatically. This is to allow customers to add their own text to the front cover.

To change the text on the front cover while you are customizing your HotBook, click page '1' above the book, click once on the text box and you can enter your required text in the popup. You can also select a different font, font size, font color, select Bold or Italic, etc.

Why do I just see a blank popup when I click 'Sign In' or 'Sign Up' on www.hotprints.com?

This can mean that Flash isn't installed on your computer, or it's an old version, or it's corrupt.

As well as many other websites, we use Flash for some parts of our application. To confirm whether Flash is installed successfully in your browser, please click here: http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/

If it's installed OK, you should see a red spinning "F" and then some text saying "Adobe Flash Player successfully installed". There should also be a box that says "Version Information" followed by "You have version xxxxxxx installed".

If you don't see this, you can install Flash from here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ ***It is usually necessary to restart the computer after installing Flash.***

If Flash is installed OK, try clearing your browser history, cache and cookies, then closing your browser before reopening the browser and trying to log in again.

If you are using our application on Facebook, logging out of Facebook and in again sometimes helps.

If those suggestions don't help, in order for us to help with this problem, please can you email support@hotprints.com with what version of Flash shows when you click the above-mentioned link, and attach a screenshot of your full screen to the email?

If you aren't sure how to take a screenshot:
For a Mac, press Cmd + Shift + 3 together and an image of your screen will be saved to the desktop.
This link has a good explanation for Windows: http://www.wikihow.com/Take-a-Screenshot-in-Microsoft-Windows
For Linux, press Print Screen.

When I click 'Make a HotBook', I only see the HotPrints logo and a large blank white area where the application should be. How do I fix that?

This problem is caused by the browser or Firewall blocking part of the HotPrints application.

Please add http://d3t3yzx82tociy.cloudfront.net to the 'safe senders' list in your browser.

Also, if you have a Firewall installed, you will need to set the Firewall to allow that URL.