You didn't make a file. You made a book.

On this page11 sections

1. Why turn a journal into a book
2. Journals, recipe books, kids' art and more
3. Print a single copy, or one for everyone
4. Choose your book size first
5. Bleed, trim and safe area
6. Preview every spread before you print
7. Design your book cover
8. Hardcover or paperback, paper and ink
9. How to order, and what it costs
10. Print on demand, shipped and tracked
11. Questions

Why turn a journal into a book

Writing in a digital notebook is useful. Holding the finished notebook in your hands changes what it is.

Files are fragile in a way that is easy to forget. Laptops get replaced, drives fail, accounts get closed, formats stop opening. Ten years from now, a folder of notebook files is a question mark. A book on a shelf just opens: for you, and for whoever picks it up next. It needs no app, no charger and no password. Your grandchildren can read it.

A book also changes how you see the work. A journal you scrolled through on a screen becomes something with weight and a spine, a beginning and an end. A year you kept in pieces becomes a year you can hand to someone.

That is the reason Mementa exists, and the reason printing is built into the app rather than left as an export you have to figure out somewhere else.

Journals, recipe books, kids' art and more

A Mementa notebook can be printed as almost any kind of personal book:

• A year in a journal. Daily pages, gratitude lists, prayer journals, dream journals, a year of a planner once it is over.
• A family record. A baby's first year, a pregnancy, a wedding, a family tree with photos and handwritten stories.
• A recipe book. The family recipes, in the handwriting of the people who cooked them, bound for every sibling.
• A travel journal. Tickets, maps, photos and notes from the road, finished on the flight home. See digital scrapbooking.
• A kids' art book. A year of drawings off the fridge and into a book. See kids' art books.
• A memorial book. Photos, letters and memories of someone you love, printed for the people who loved them too.
• A sketchbook or portfolio. Your drawings, lettering or design work, in the shape of a real art book.
• A comic or a zine. Something you drew, bound and real.
• Letters and photographs. Handwritten letters to a child, a partner or a friend, gathered into one book.

Print a single copy, or one for everyone

One copy for your own shelf is fine. There is no minimum order and no print run to arrange. But books also travel:

• To family far away. Printed books ship to 215 countries, priced in the buyer's own currency where supported, so a copy can go straight to grandparents overseas.
• To everyone who was there. Order one for each person who came on the trip, sang at the wedding, or grew up in that kitchen.
• Under a tree. A printed journal, recipe book or photo book is a gift nobody else could give.
• To a classroom or a club. A class yearbook of drawings, a club's season in photos, a reading group's notes.
• Into a time capsule. A year of a child's life, sealed away to be opened at eighteen.
• Back into your hands, every year. One book a year becomes a set on a shelf, a library of your own life.

And because your notebook stays in Mementa after you order, you can order another copy whenever you like: next week, or in ten years.

Choose your book size first

The reason most digital journals are hard to print is that they were never made for paper. Their pages are shaped for a screen, they have no bleed, and writing runs right to the edge. Mementa starts at the other end: you choose the shape of the book before you write the first page.

• Portrait, 6 × 9 in or 6.14 × 9.21 in, for journals, memoirs and everyday notebooks
• Square, 7.5 × 7.5 in or 8.5 × 8.5 in, for scrapbooks, photo books and visual collections
• A series, A5 at 5.83 × 8.27 in or A4 at 8.27 × 11.69 in, for planners and worksheets
• Wide, 7.44 × 9.68 in or 8.5 × 11 in, for art books, recipes and roomy layouts

Every page is drawn on a 300 DPI canvas with bleed already behind it. The shape sets the cover, the spreads, the print guides and the price. Nothing gets cropped to fit later, because nothing ever needed to fit.

Read about page shapes

Bleed, trim and safe area

Every printed page is cut from a larger sheet, and the cut is never perfectly exact. Four guides show you what that means for your page:

• Trim, where the page will be cut
• Bleed, past the trim, where background art should run so no white edge appears
• Safe area, inside the trim, where words and faces belong
• Gutter, the room where facing pages meet the binding

Turn the guides on while you lay out a page and off while you write. They never print.

Read about print guides

Preview every spread before you print

Before you order, read your notebook the way a reader will: as a two page spread in the real shape of the book, with page turns that bow and shade like paper. Look for a photo creeping into the gutter, a blank page in the wrong place, a spread that does not balance. Reorder, add or delete pages from the page rail, and set the page count in one pass.

A printed softcover needs at least 32 pages and a hardcover at least 24. If your notebook is shorter, blank pages are added at the end of the print file. Your notebook itself is not changed.

Read about Book Mode

Design your book cover

The cover is the last thing you make and the first thing anyone sees. The cover designer opens the whole wrap in one frame, back, spine and front, sized from your binding and your page count. Drop in your own photo or painting, or fill a face with a flat color, and set the title in one of five typefaces. Spine text appears once the book is thick enough to carry it.

Before you pay, Checks reads every face for resolution, bleed and crowding, and fixes what it can. You find out on screen that a photo is 216 PPI, not four days later in an email from the printer.

Read about the cover designer

Hardcover or paperback, paper and ink

A handwritten notebook should not cost the same as a photo book, so every part of the book is your choice:

• Binding: softcover or hardcover
• Cover finish: matte, low glare, or glossy, with more pop
• Interior ink: standard black and white for pen and line work, premium black and white for pencil shading, standard color for some color, premium color for full color art
• Interior paper: 60# cream, warm and uncoated, for black ink only; 60# white, everyday and uncoated; 80# white, smooth and coated, the photo book stock

Mementa says when a better pairing exists, coated paper under color ink and uncoated under black, and quotes the real difference in price rather than claiming one is nicer.

Read about paper, ink and binding

How to order, and what it costs

1. Your book is ready. An interactive flip through preview of the finished book.
2. Size. The small or large trim for your notebook's shape.
3. Edition. Binding, cover finish, paper and ink.
4. Quantity. One for the shelf, or one for everyone who was there.
5. Address. Any of 215 countries, checked with the printer before you pay.
6. Quote. The exact total, in your own currency where supported.
7. Pay. Card or PayPal, inside the app.

In the US, a softcover starts from $20 and a hardcover from $34, with shipping included in the price you see. Longer books, larger sizes and some destinations cost more, and tax and any import duties are added at checkout, before you pay.

Read about quote and checkout

Print on demand, shipped and tracked

Books are printed and shipped by Lulu, a print on demand partner. Your book is sent to the printer only once the payment is confirmed, and only once. You get a Mementa order reference straight away, a status to follow, and an email with tracking when the book ships. Delivery time depends on where it is going, so Mementa does not promise one.

Read about shipping to 215 countries

Questions