Adding photos and video to items using the Item Builder (Classic)

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Learn how to add photos or a video to your item, including editing, rotating, reordering, or deleting photos, and adding an item location.

New to the Item Builder? You can read the first article in this series for an introduction to the Item Builder.

 

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Which plans include this feature?

Legacy:  Soho, Pro, Plus, Enterprise, Flex
New:  Starter, Growth (Subscription), Growth (Per Booking), Managed
→ Learn more about our new plans or how to change your plan.

Where can I find this feature using the top menu?

Inventory > Items > Add New Item (or Edit Item) > Media

What more do I need to use this feature?

• Admin permissions or restricted permissions to View items, products, and assets and Manage items, products, and assets.
  
  

Which Checkfront version supports this feature - classic, new or both?

• Your account must have access to items (Inventory > Items), a key feature of our classic version of Checkfront. 

 

New to Checkfront - Products ✨ With our newest version of Checkfront, we have added Products (Inventory > Products) as the successor to items (Inventory > Items). Are you interested in migrating to our newest version? Please reach out to our Technical Support team for more information. What are the differences between the Item Builder and the new Product Builder? Discover more product-related help articles here!

 

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From the Media step of the Item - Inventory Builder you can add photos and a YouTube video to your item. This is a great way to describe and show the item to your Customers.

• You may display up to 5 photos, plus 1 video.
• The photos are automatically resized once the upload is complete.
• For the best results, photos should be of landscape orientation and at least 480 pixels wide and 360 pixels tall.
• Supported formats are JPG, PNG, and GIF.
• If your photo is greater than 8MB, please reduce the size before uploading the photo.
  

 

For a better Guest experience when booking, it is best to compress large images. Slower or older devices perform better with smaller images. We recommend that you reduce the image's resolution or file size in your photo editing software program before uploading the image to Checkfront.

 

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To add a photo to your item, click the blue + Add Photo button. Select the photo you wish to use from your computer.

 

Once the upload is complete, you can enter a short caption for the photo, although this is not required.  

Add additional photos by clicking on the + Add Photo button again. Remember, you can add up to 5 photos per item.

 

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If you wish to crop your image after upload, use the Image Thumbnail Editor. Hover your mouse over the image you wish to edit and click the Edit Photo button.

From there, you can drag out the selection box to crop the image to your liking. When finished, click Save.  

 

Rotate Images Are your images rotated incorrectly? This may be due to the image information stored with your photo (metadata), which, regardless of how your camera was oriented when taking the photo, communicates how to display the image the right way up to the software. This metadata is not accessible to the browser when you upload an image online, so you won't notice the issue until you upload it to Checkfront or other websites. You should be able to work around this by editing the image before uploading it. 1. Open the image in an image editor. 2. Rotate the image so it is no longer upright. 3. Save the rotated image. 4. Rotate the image so it is upright again. 5. Save the upright image. 6. Upload the image to Checkfront. The image should now save using the needed orientation and no longer rely on hidden metadata.

 

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To reorder an image, hold your mouse button and drag it to where you want it to be. Release the mouse button to complete the repositioning.

 

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To delete an image, hover your mouse over it again and click the trashcan icon in the top right corner.  

To complete the deletion, click the Yes, Delete button when prompted. However, if you change your mind, you can click the Cancel link to close the delete feature.

 

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Upload a YouTube video by inserting the video URL directly into the YouTube Video field. An example of a YouTube video URL is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ok035fXdhAh.

Alternatively, you can enter the video ID: 1Ok035fXdhAh.

 

Once you enter the URL or video ID, another field appears, labelled Start Time. Entering a value here begins the video at the specified time marker rather than at the beginning.

Enter the number of seconds for the point at which you want the video to begin once a Customer clicks on it in the booking portal. For example, to start your clip two minutes in, you must enter 120 in this field (120 seconds).  

A thumbnail-size version of the video displays directly below the time field. You can click on this to ensure the starting point is where you expect it to be. So, when Customers click your item in the booking portal, they see two tabs for viewing the photos and video!

 

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If you activate the Maps integration, you can include a location map for each inventory item. This is particularly useful for tour operators and accommodation providers who wish to display an exact location or meeting point for their business.

In the Location field, enter either a civic address (e.g. 100 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View, CA) or GPS coordinates (e.g. 49.7576566, -123.1431165 ).

 

Finding Location Coordinates If the item doesn't have a physical address, you can enter its geographical coordinates instead, for example, 49.7576566, -123.1431165. A great website to use for this is https://latlong.net. Here, you can drop a pin on a map to display the coordinates, which can then be added to the Location field.

 

Once you enter the location, a button labelled Create Map displays. Click Create Map to generate the map based on the location specified.

 

When a Customer clicks on the map pin, an information box opens. The details you provide in the following fields determine the content of that box.

 

 Adding marker titles

This is the title for the map marker and the header for the information box. It could be the name of your business or something more specific such as a meeting place.

 

Adding marker descriptions

Descriptive content for the map pin information box. Keep it short, but provide any pertinent details here.

 

Specifying map zoom numbers

Change this value to determine how close you would like the default map zoom to be. The higher the number, the more zoomed in the map. Enter a number between 0-18.

To preview your changes, click on the Refresh Map button and then click on the map pin.

 

Removing maps

To remove the map, remove the location from the field and click the Remove Map button below the map.

 

To move on to the Attributes tab, click Next in the bottom right corner of the screen.

 

 

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< Adding descriptions to items     |     Configuring inventory and parameters for items >

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