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← Cut & Proof

The
Ledger

A studio print log. Every work, the proofs you pulled, the paper and inks you used, and the edition ticked off as it leaves the studio. Saved in this browser, on this device, and nowhere else.

To keep this on your home screen: tap the Share button in Safari, then Add to Home Screen. It will then open full screen and work without a signal.

The shelf

Impression

Backup & storage

How full this is

 

 

Backup

A backup is one file holding every work, every note and every photo. It is the only way your records survive a new phone, a cleared browser or a broken laptop. Make one now and then.

For your accounts

A spreadsheet file with one row per work, including the costings. Opens in anything.

Tidying up

Photos left behind by deleted entries take up room for nothing. This finds and clears them.

Starting again

This removes every work, note and photograph from this browser. It cannot be undone, and a backup made beforehand is the only way back.

How this works

What it is for

A print log. One record per work, holding two different things: the making of it, as a diary of proofs, and the edition, as a grid you tick off as impressions leave the studio.

The proofing diary

Add an entry each time you pull a proof. Date it, say what it was — working proof, state proof, BAT — and write what went wrong and what to change. That last part is the whole point. Anyone can remember the print; nobody remembers that the third pass needed less ink.

The edition grid

Set an edition size and the grid appears, numbered 1/25 through 25/25. Tap a square and pick its status. Artist's and printer's proofs sit in their own strip underneath, numbered separately, as convention has them.

Inks

Name each ink, set a swatch, and note anything about it. If you mixed it in Mixing Slab, paste the link it gave you: the swatch sets itself, and tapping the link later reopens Mixing Slab with that colour ready to re-solve against whatever is on your shelf now. Which is the point — the tubes change, the target does not.

Photos

Up to three per diary entry. Every photo is shrunk to 512 pixels on its longest edge before it is stored, because a browser's storage is small and a phone photograph is not.

These are reminders, not archives. The good photograph of the finished print belongs in your photo library. This one is here so you recognise the record at a glance.

Pricing

Materials, plus your hours at your rate, plus a margin. It gives two per-print figures. The first divides everything across the whole edition. The second divides it across the number you actually expect to sell — which is the truthful one, and the one the suggested price is built on.

Getting it onto paper

Press Export this record and your browser's print dialogue opens. To get a PDF rather than paper, choose Save as PDF where the printer name usually goes.

The edition grid prints with both colour and letters, so it still reads photocopied or in black and white. There is a switch to drop the colour if you would rather not spend the ink.

Where your records live

In this browser, on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere, there is no account, and nothing is tracked. The other side of that bargain: clearing your browser data clears this too, and there is no copy anywhere else.

So use Backup & storage now and again. It writes one file holding everything, which restores into any browser on any device. It is the only way your records outlive this phone.

What it deliberately does not do

  • Track sales. An impression can be marked sold, but there is no price, buyer or invoice. That is a different tool, and it is better built once printmakers have said what shape they need.
  • Sync between devices. The backup file is the way across.
  • Store photographs at full size. See above — the browser has nowhere to put them.

Putting it on your phone

This is a proper installable app, not just a bookmark. Tap Install app at the top, or on an iPhone use Share then Add to Home Screen. It then opens full screen and works without a signal.

Your records carry over, because the installed app uses the same browser storage as the tab you installed it from.

Made by

Martin Snelling, a printmaker. Free, no accounts, nothing tracked. If it helps, you can buy the creator a coffee.