Are free books available in my country?

As of 1st June 2010, we are able to offer FOUR free HotBooks per month to all shipping addresses worldwide! You will only need to pay the very reasonable shipping cost of US$2.99 per book (i.e. £1.99 or €2.99) to any shipping address worldwide.

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 costs against it!

If there are charges in the shopping cart and you feel there shouldn't be, please contact our Support Team BEFORE you complete the order and pay for 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.  

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 (not including weekend days), but it all depends on the destination country's local postal service.

THERE IS NO TRACKING ON THE POSTAGE, or a guaranteed delivery time.

We are not responsible for items lost in the post. However, if you paid for your order, and it doesn't arrive within 30 business days (not including weekend days), please let us know.

Orders for more than one free photo book are shipped separately, so may not be delivered on the same day.

We have automated printing and packaging of the free books to make the process as efficient and cost effective as possible. So the free books are shipped individually in a transparent polybag and the address is printed in the back cover.

When do you charge my credit card or PayPal account?

We do not charge until we ship your order.

***If you see 2 amounts in your credit card statement, the first transaction you see is due to the payment authorization that took place at the time of submitting your order. Since credit card companies present these transactions in different ways in their statements, please check with your credit card company for further details. We cannot/would not charge your card more than the authorized amount.

If you have paid for a book for a Facebook Friend, and they don't confirm their shipping address, no payment will be taken.

Do you support Linux?

Currently, HotPrints software does not work on Linux.

Do you support Google Chrome?

Yes, we support the full version of Chrome, but not the Beta version. We have also discovered some problems with Internet Explorer version 7.

What does the yellow warning mean on my photo?

This is a guideline only. Your photo may be too small and may print blurry and we recommend uploading a bigger photos, with a higher resolution. Or, if the photo is in a large photo frame on the book, place that particular photo in a smaller photo frame from a different page layout.

For more information, see here: http://www.hotprints.com/en/resolution

The best way to double-check your HotBook is:
Save your HotBook
Click 'Not Today' to return to your main page.
Click the 'My Books' tab after a few minutes - until the 'Rendering' button has changed to say 'View Book'.
Click the 'Download' button.

This will download a PDF file of your HotBook so you can check every page to make sure. Your HotBook will print exactly the same as the PDF, so if your photos look great there, they will look great in your HotBook.

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.

How do I share a HotBook with my friends and family?

Currently, you can only share your HotBooks with friends if you are using our application on Facebook.

When you create a new HotBook in your Facebook account, you are given the option to share that book with your Friend(s) before you get to the 'Shopping Cart' screen.

If you want to share a HotBook that you previously created, from the list of HotBooks/HotCalendars on your account you can click on the "Share with friends" button next to the book you want to share.

You can also click "Post to Profile" next to an existing book or calendar, and that will appear on your Facebook Wall for your friends to see.

Don't forget that you can buy additional copies of your books at any time!

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 photos, using a photo editing application (e.g. Microsoft Paint, Apple's Preview application, etc) before uploading them and adding them to a HotBook or HotCalendar.

Currently, the photos will appear in the HotBook and HotCalendar in the orientation that they are saved on the computer. The exception is our new full-page layouts for HotBook - a 'landscape' photo will be rotated to fit on the page so that more of the photo is visible.

How can I delete a photo from my account?

We don't yet have a photo deletion feature in the HotPrints application, but we hope to add one over the next few months.

To make it easier to manage your photos, you can create a new photo album. Simply 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.

For information, nobody but you will have access to the photos you upload.

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.

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.

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.

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

We cannot be held responsible for free items damaged in transit, or by the mailman.

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.