iPhoto books from pdf only?

I can order books and I have. I just can't upgrade my iPhoto or my OS. Even the Apple Store gurus couldn't get my iPhoto Library to work with 09. They had installed 09 on my iMac (without my consent) while working on another issue. My iPhoto Library wouldn't work despite there best attempts. They put 8.1.2 back on my iMac and I've been trying to figure out how to save my work for several years now.

Tonight I downloaded a trial version of iPhoto Library Manager. Surprisingly, it says my iPhoto Library is v9.2.1!

In addition to my books, I have used the "description" section to save information for nearly 1000 wildflower pictures: scientific name, common name, location, date, etc. The Apple folks told me they could definitely reconstruct my iPhoto Library but I'd lose all that information.

Please reread my original post. I did NOT say I can't order books. I CAN order books, and have. I said I have created numerous books but my Library is apparently corrupt, so I CANNOT UPGRADE without losing the books. Therefore, in order to save my books (for future use) I wanted to know if I can order books directly from the .pdf files I have saved. The answer to that appears to be "no."

To answer your questions:

My iMac is running OS X 10.6.8

I am running iPhoto '09 8.1.2 (424). Yes, I previously said I was using iPhoto '08. It's my mistake for thinking the version number would match the "year" number. It seems so logical.

iPhoto Library Manager thinks my iPhoto Library is 9.2.1. That most likely is from when the Apple Store loaded Snow Leopard and iPhoto '11 on my machine by mistake when they replaced my hard drive. When we found that my iPhoto Library would not work, and they were unable to fix it, they restored iPhoto '09. The Library works, but I do believe it isn't completely healthy. (For example, when iDVD looks at my iPhoto Library Events, it displays numerous blank thumbnails. Occasionally I've found pictures that only display the black exclamation point.)

Note, I've done NOTHING with iPhoto Library Manager except to launch it and read instructions to see if it could repair my iPhoto Library AND PRESERVE MY BOOKS. It can't preserve books either.

So let me restate my issue. I have numerous books and photo descriptions that I'd like to preserve. I'd also like to upgrade from iPhoto '09. The Apple Store folks said they could "manually" rebuild (this might not be the correct terminology) my iPhoto Library, but I will definitely lose all my books and descriptions. That's a big deal. How can I avoid this?

I have figured out that I can "export" my photos and the "descriptions" will be preserved when I import them into iPhoto. With over 20,000 photos in several hundred events, that's tedious but it works. The books are still a problem however.

The folks at the Apple Store did this, but I'll try it again. Even after doing that the Library would not work with iPhoto '11. I recall there was something iPhoto '11 had to do with an older Library when you first tried to open it. That procedure always hung up and would not finish.

You are correct that the "rebuild" procedures you describe don't affect books. The Apple Store folks told me there was a way they were sure they could reconstruct the Library so it would work with iPhoto '11, but that I'd lose all my albums, descriptions and books. I don't know the exact wording they used, but the result was that I'd get my photos and nothing else.

I've put a backup on an external drive. I'll try the steps you suggest with that copy so I can take it to my son-in-law to try using iPhoto '11.

Tom

I did the first step without a problem. The second step, "recover orphaned photos" said it found 45565 photos that don't belong to this library. I don't have that many photos in my entire library! It asked whether I wanted to import them. I said "no". All the thumbnails for my events have disappeared and all my photos now appear only as the black exclamation point! I'll have to make another backup and start over. I'm sure this isn't supposed to happen, right?

Tom

I forgot to answer your question about upgrading the library to '11. The upgrading just never finished. I don't recall that we ever got an error message.

Tom

OK, I've done all the steps you suggested. I did them sequentially, quitting iPhoto between each step, then restarting with option-command. My Library is now totaly screwed up. All of the ~45000 recovered photos were 270x340 pixels (or something very close to that). I continued with the rest of the steps and now the Recovered Photo album is empty. Numerous Events show a blank thumbnail and MANY pictures are missing, giving only the black exclamation point. Some of the "blank" events do still have some pictures but many "blank" events show only dashed squares where pictures should be.

My books are also messed up.

What next? 😟

Fortunately, I still have the original Library.

The first time I reovered orphaned photos I said "NO" to importing orphaned photos. The orphaned photos were saved to a new folder outside of iPhoto Library. I looked at the saved photos. All were small size and many had a filename that included the word "face". I suspect the "orphaned photos" were really just thumbnails. That explains the small size. Note that I didn't say this changed the size of any of my non-orphaned photos. It didn't.

When I said "YES" to importing the salvaged photos, the orphaned photos were saved to an album in iPhoto. They were all small size. My other existing photos did not change size, but many disappeared (i.e., changed to the black exclamation point). This situation persisted even after I completed all the other steps. I'd estimate the most recent 25% of my events had lost their thumbnails and contained very very few, if any, real pictures. Since so many pictures were gone I did not take the Library to my son-in-law. I didn't see the point.

Here's the complete sequence of what I did:

1. start iPhoto while holding down option-command till Rebuild window appears

choose top option, Rebuild photos' small thumbnails; click Rebuild

when this finishes, Quit iPhoto

2. start iPhoto again while holding down option-command till Rebuild window appears

choose third option, Recover orphaned photos; click Rebuild

when this finishes, Quit iPhoto

3. start iPhoto again while holding down option-command till Rebuild window appears

choose fourth option, Examine and repair; click Rebuild

when this finishes, Quit iPhoto

4. start iPhoto again while holding down option-command till Rebuild window appears

choose fifth option, Rebuild from automatic backup; click Rebuild

when this finishes, Quit iPhoto

5. start iPhoto again while holding down option-command till Rebuild window appears

choose sixth option, Reclaim unused disk space; click Rebuild

when this finishes, Quit iPhoto

Tom

This can still work for me. I can still print books from my existing Library. So I should be able to use this procedure to save both the necessary files AND my current version of iPhoto. Then I can upgrade iPhoto. Thanks!

I followed the procedure for archiving iPhoto books as described in the link you sent me (Old Toad's Tutorial). Now I have some additional questions. As instructed, I saved my current Themes folder from the Application Support folder. When I upgrade to iPhoto he says:

After upgrading to iPhoto 11 copy the Themes folder that you had saved earlier into your User/Library/Applications Support/iPhoto folder.

Won't there be a Themes folder there for iPhoto 11? By placing the "old" iPhoto Themes folder in the App Support folder, won't that replace the iPhoto 11 Themes folder? Instead, should I put the contents of the old Themes folder into the iPhoto 11 Themes folder?

I also saved my existing iPhoto application. After I upgrade, will I need to lauch the old iPhoto, or should the new version work?

Thanks!

Tom