Remembering and sharing · Chapter 14
The shelf and a year as a book
At the top of your journal stands a small shelf. Every year in which you wrote is a volume on it, and this year's volume grows a little wider with every page. nexdiary can set any volume as a PDF, with a title page, the contents and a page for each day. You can keep it, or have a print shop bind it.
The shelf
You find it under “Journal”, right at the top, in the card “Your volumes”. Each volume is as wide as it is full, in the colour of your theme, older ones a little darker. Behind them an empty one waits for next year, such as “Volume 2027 is waiting”.
Next to the shelf it says how far the year has come, say “228 of 365 pages”, with a bar and a line such as “85 days left until New Year's Eve. Every page stays, even when a week is missing.” The very first volume counts only from your first page. A past year reads “A finished volume.”
- Opening a year: Tap a volume, or “Open 2026”. The list below then shows only that year, and the button now reads “Only 2026”. Tap again to see every day once more.
- A year as a book: The button “As a book” beside it is for the volume that is open. With none chosen, that is this year's volume.
Setting a year as a book
- Choose the volume
For this year, press “As a book” straight away. For an earlier year, tap its volume first and then “As a book”. The window “2026 as a book” opens with a preview of three pages: the title page, a chapter and a day.
- The format
“A5, like a book” is preselected. “A4” gives larger pages.
- What goes in
“Photos and covers” is on, “Values under each day” and “Raw notes in an appendix” are off. Below it says roughly how many pages it will be.
- “Make the PDF”
The button shows “Setting the pages …”. Leave the window open; if you close it before the end, nexdiary gives the book up. When it is done, the browser downloads the PDF by itself, and the shelf says “Done:” with the file name and the number of pages.
What is in the book
At the front, a title page with six covers from the year, the year itself and “The diary of” with your name. Then a table of contents and a chapter for each month. Every day gets its own page with its cover, the date, the title and the text with the pictures in it; a long day runs over several pages. Locked days go in too. If you switched them on, each day's values stand below it and your raw notes fill an appendix.
Where the PDF is made
nexdiary sets the book on your own server. The PDF never lies unencrypted on the disk there, only you can fetch it, and only once. After that it is gone; if you do not fetch it, it lapses after half an hour. The window puts it like this: “The PDF is made on your server and goes nowhere else.”
A book takes some computing. So the server sets one after another, and each person can make six books an hour. If another one is being set, nexdiary says “A book is being set right now. Try again in a moment.”
Having it printed
Any print shop that takes a PDF can make a book of it. The PDF is a tidy file in A5 or A4, but it is no template for professional printing: it has no bleed and no crop marks. Ask the print shop whether they accept a file without bleed. For the printer at home it is fine as it is.
Good to knowA year with photos quickly makes a thick book. For a present to Ruth, A5 with photos is often enough; leave the values and raw notes out.