How to View Images
The Footnote Viewer makes it possible for all users to enjoy and appreciate the huge collection of historical documents and photos on Footnote. Even critics and long-term users of Footnote have been raving on how extremely easy it is to check out photos and images as you please.
The special Footnote Viewer is said to be among the best photo viewers online, and you can maximize the benefits, too. All you need is to sign up for a membership to Footnote, as well as have the latest version of Flash Player installed on your browser.
How to invoke the Footnote Viewer? As you sign in, do an image search or select any of the categories of documents on Footnote. When you click on an image, the Footnote Viewer is automatically opened. It takes a few seconds for the viewer to load fully along with your image of choice. Listed below are the features of the Footnote Viewer, and a short description on each portion.
First up, the top most part of the page is the Viewer Toolbar, with several buttons denoting the various actions you can perform on the image you are viewing.
Zoom - This allows you to view the image more closely or a little farther. Just click and drag on the arrow from left to right to adjust the zooming in or out of the Footnote Viewer. You can change it from 60% the original size to 200% of the image size.
Rotate - It rotates or changes the orientation of the document 90 degrees clockwise. Clicking on the button repeatedly further rotates the image, until it gets back to the original orientation.
Spotlight - This is the option you can choose if you want to start a discussion or share any attribute of the image that has sparked your interest. A spotlight is a web page on Footnote that shows the image you have selected, or a part of it that you have cropped. Spotlights contain a title and a short description, and each one you make is listed under your Profile. Check the How to Spotlight an Image tutorial for further details on this option.
Annotate - At times when certain areas or lines of text are unreadable on a photo or image, it helps to place an annotation on it. It can be a name of a person, place, date, or event. An image can have an unlimited number of annotations, as contributed by its viewers. Read the How to Annotate guide to learn more on this.
Connect - Images or photos on Footnote can share similarities whether they are on the persons found in them, places the picture was taken, or the date it was made. Members of Footnote can make connections between photos to supplement existing data, support a collection of images, or to introduce something new. Connections between images may be multiple, and these also create channels of communication among members. The How to Make a Connection portion of this guide will be an extremely useful read.
Save - You can download the image you are looking at on the Footnote Viewer, either onto your computer or on your gallery. You may also create a new collection in your gallery for this particular image you want to save. You have the choice of saving the entire image, or cropping out a specific part of it.
Share - You can send a particular image to a friend who might want to view it as well. You simply need to type in the email address of whom you want to send it to, and add an optional message describing why you want to share the photo.
Print - You can get a hard copy of an image that you find on Footnote with the printing option. You may choose to print a portion of the image, or the entire image.
Help - This invokes the troubleshooting guide if you need additional info on how to make use of the Footnote Viewer.
Aside from the buttons located on the Footnote Viewer Toolbar, you find a frame on the right hand side of the image, labeled as "About this Document." This contains additional info on the image you are viewing, from the name of the photo, of the member who uploaded it, as well as date and short description of the image.
Aside from the about info of the image, you also get to find a list of all the annotations that have been made on it, with names of Footnote members specified. Below the annotations tab, you find the comments that recent viewers have made. Under the comments tab, you may also add a comment if you prefer to do so. There is an article in this guide that details more on How to Comment.
On the bottom part of the Footnote Viewer, you will find a button "Open Filmstrip." Upon clicking it, a series of photo thumbnails will be shown to you, which are all belonging to the same series or collection as the current image on the viewer. The collection is denoted by the Footnote member who has made the upload. When you mouse over each image, you find the filename of the photo. When you click on one, the Footnote Viewer automatically opens it.
You may also view the images you have uploaded yourself using the Footnote Viewer. You can open the viewer from Your Gallery by clicking on any image in your collection. Viewing images is also a good way to know more about other members of the Footnote community who share similar interests with you. When you view images on Footnote, feel free to make comments, add annotations, or create connections as well.