This option does the hard work of ThumbsPlus: it reads the graphic files selected in the Image List and reduces them to create thumbnails, and stores the thumbnails in the ThumbsPlus database. These miniature pictures of your graphics files make life with Windows easier by helping you find specific images or drawings quickly and easily.

To create or update thumbnails for all files in the current directory, use the menu option Thumbnails | Update All. To scan a disk drive for all recognized files, use Thumbnails | Scan Drive.

Unlike these other options, Thumbnail | Make does not check for updated files and always makes thumbnails, regardless of whether one is already on file.

This option creates or updates thumbnails for all recognized files in the current directory. If a thumbnail already exists for a file, its update date and time are checked against what is stored in the ThumbsPlus database. If the file has been modified since the thumbnail was made, it is regenerated from the file.

While running, a progress box displays which indicates how much of the work is complete. Click Cancel to quit making thumbnails. This progress box also contains a list box where any errors which occur are listed. These errors include the file name being "nailed" at the time of the error. If any errors occur, the progress box will remain until you click OK.

When you select Scan Drive, ThumbsPlus examines all files on the current drive looking for files that it recognizes and creates a thumbnail for each of them. If a thumbnail already exists for a file, its update date and time are checked against what is stored in the ThumbsPlus database. If the file has been modified since the thumbnail was made, it is regenerated from the file.

While running, a progress box displays which indicates how much of the work is complete. This progress indicator is based on the total space in use on the drive, and is updated by the size of each file as it is examined. Since graphics files are usually grouped together, and different types of files take various amounts of time to analyze and reduce, this indicator does not really indicate the amount of progress made in time, but only how far through the disk ThumbsPlus has looked.

Click Cancel in the progress box to quit making thumbnails. This progress box also contains a list box where any errors which occur are listed. These errors include the file name being "nailed" at the time of the error. If any errors occur, the progress box will remain until you click OK.

When you select Scan Tree, ThumbsPlus examines all files in the current directory and any of its sub-directories.

While running, a progress box displays which indicates how much of the work is complete. This progress indicator is based on the total space in use on the drive, and is updated by the size of each file as it is examined. Since graphics files are usually grouped together, and different types of files take various amounts of time to analyze and reduce, this indicator does not really indicate the amount of progress made in time, but only how far through the disk ThumbsPlus has looked.

Click Cancel in the progress box to quit making thumbnails. This progress box also contains a list box where any errors which occur are listed. These errors include the file name being "nailed" at the time of the error. If any errors occur, the progress box will remain until you click OK.

This selection will remove any "orphaned" thumbnails (those for files that have been deleted by another program) in the current folder tree or the current drive.

Orphaned thumbnails may also be removed automatically whenever you change to a directory by selecting Automatically remove orphans in the Options | Preferences | General dialog box.

Some users prefer that orphans remain for removed files, especially those that have been archived.

ThumbsPlus will generate contact sheets (graphic files containing thumbnails) either from thumbnails already in the database or from the original files themselves.

There are many options that you can set to control the appearance of the contact sheets; these are covered in the various tabs shown below.

Output
Background & Borders
Layout
Header & Footer
Fonts
Options

Thumbnail | Contact Sheets | Output

Directory for output. Select the directory for the contact sheets. Use the Browse button to find one.

File name or prefix. When a single sheet is selected, this field is used as the complete file name. When multiple sheets are created, this field is used as the file prefix, and a sequence number (001, 002, etc.) is appended.

Overwrite existing files. If this option is selected and the file already exists, it is overwritten.

Image size. Select a size (in pixels) for the contact sheets. Several standard choices are provided, or you may define a custom size.

Thumbnail | Contact Sheets | Background & Borders

Background. Select the type of background. Solid color fill creates a background that is a single, solid color. Load from file allows you to use a graphics file as a background. If the file is smaller than 1/2 the dimensions of the contact sheet, it will be tiled. Otherwise, it will be stretched to fill the sheet.

Borders. Select the type of borders for the thumbnails.

Line color. Select the color for the borders (simple style only).

Interior fill. Select a color for filling the interior of the thumbnail boxes on the contact sheet. If "Don't fill" is selected, then the border will be placed around the thumbnail itself, rather than around the area reserved for it.

Thumbnail | Contact Sheets | Layout

Use this tab to determine the layout on the page of the catalog.

Margins. Select the left, right, top and bottom margins.

Units. Pixels are always used as the units for contact sheets.

Thumbnail Size. Selects the size of thumbnails to generate, in pixels.

Columns. Selects the number of columns of thumbnails to present.

Line Spacing. Selects the spacing (in pixels) between lines of thumbnails or text.

Thumbnail | Contact Sheets | Header & Footer

Use this tab to enter a header and footer for the contact sheets. Each may be multiple lines, and may contain the following tokens that ThumbsPlus will use to substitute the appropriate value:

\p Page number.

\d Date

\t Time

Thumbnail | Contact Sheets | Fonts

Use this tab to select the typefaces and text colors for the catalog printout. You can select separate fonts for the header and footer, directory entries, and thumbnail captions.

Thumbnail | Contact Sheets | Options

The Options tab provides several choices for the contents of the contact sheets.

Include with thumbnails. Select the information about the thumbnails to include on the contact sheets.

Which files to include. Choose which files to include on the contact sheets.

Print heading for each directory. If this item is checked, then ThumbsPlus will print a heading for each directory included on the sheets. This heading will contain the volume and directory names.

New page for each directory. Check this option to cause ThumbsPlus to start a new sheet for each directory or sub-directory.

Rebuild thumbnails at printer resolution. Check this option for high-resolution thumbnails, which take longer to generate (the disk files must be read and reduced to the proper size), but are much higher quality.

Automatically crop images. Causes ThumbsPlus to automatically crop images before making the thumbnails. This removes excess single-color borders from images.