There are 14 types of templates for shared collections that you can choose from on Pics.io. While 13 of them are just great for showcasing your work to external users in a classy manner, there is one special template that allows fully-fledged proofing and interactive collaboration. As the name suggests, this is the Proofing Template.
​
Proofing is an essential part of any design workflow. As you are working on some project, you constantly need to show your work to your customers, teammates, and other stakeholders involved. However, you need even more than that. You need to receive their feedback.

The Proofing template does more than just help you showcase the results of your work. It lets visitors of your shared collections interact with it by searching for necessary files, rating assets, leaving comments on them, etc.

​

How is Proofing Template different from other templates for shared collections?

The biggest difference is that the Proofing Template allows interactive collaboration. Your customers and teammates are able not only to view your work but give feedback. They can see the whole structure of your collection, with all nested subcollections, search for the necessary assets, leave comments about your work, put markers, outline points of interest, suggest changes, etc. 

If you want to simply showcase your work in a grid view, you can use our new Embedded Gallery template, optimized for web embedding.

By the way, if you’re looking for an album-style template, Old Fashion - available in both white and black variants - would be a great choice. This template also allows you to display the asset Title/Description directly in preview mode, making it easy to present additional context alongside each file.
​
But in case you need to work with video files on Pics.io, there is another template designed for publishing video files that is even better than Proofing- the Lumière. This is the best theme to show your videos to clients or teammates as its layout is designed for video file aspect ratios.

NB! Lumiere and Space templates do not support .PDF files preview for Amazon S3 and Pics.io storage as of now. Please use any alternative template if you have .PDFs to show.

​How can I publish a collection using the Proofing Template?
​
You can publish a collection using the Proofing Template just by choosing this template in your shared collection's settings. Hover your mouse cursor over the name of a collection that will be shared and click the "globe" icon to publish it. Then choose the "Proofing Template", which is the first option in the list of templates.

NB Before you click the "Publish" button, make sure you've configured your shared collection's settings in the Customization section.
​

What are the customizing options for a Proofing Template?
​
The customizing options available for a Proofing Panel are much more diverse than those for other templates for shared collections. The options you can select here define the extent to which others can interact with your shared collection. This is the list of options available for customizing the Proofing template:

Comment control setting

To enhance control over collaboration, we have added a new setting Restrict access to internal comments (available when Comments → Show is enabled).

This ensures that only relevant external feedback is shared, streamlining collaboration with external clients and teammates (internal Pics.io users).

Besides, like on all other templates for shared collections, you can protect your Proofing Template with a password and add Google Analytics there. After you have finished customizing your shared collection, hit Publish, and you're all set to share the link with whoever you want.
​
Visitors can also choose how the assets will be displayed on your shared collection by selecting one of the viewing modes: Grid or List (1x, 1.5x, 2x scalable). It may help them locate the needed assets faster, or obtain essential information more efficiently.
​
​

How can I change the sorting mode on the Proofing template?

It's possible to set the sorting mode for your assets depending on your needs. All the sorting modes available in your Pics.io account can be used with the Proofing template.
You can set the default sorting mode on the template in your shared collection's Settings - Customization tab.

Collections in the Collection tree are sorted by alphabet. It's a default sorting mode for collections and cannot be changed.

Is there any synchronization between my Pics.io collections and shared collections?

Yes, there's a direct connection between a collection in Pics.io and the shared collection that is published on the web.

All changes applied to assets on shared collections are automatically reflected in Pics.io, and vice versa. If you upload a new asset or a new revision in the collection that is shared outside, these new assets will also appear on the published collection.

This peculiarity makes the Proofing Template an ideal tool for sharing your work with external users and colleagues who should review and remotely leave their feedback about assets.

We have introduced a new template called Embedded Gallery - Adaptive Thumbnails for embedding your Pics.io shared collections into websites or webpages. This template creates a dynamic and flexible gallery by adjusting thumbnail sizes to match the original dimensions of each image, keeping them clear and undistorted. The layout adapts smoothly to different screen sizes, with columns resizing automatically, just like the Grid View in Pics.io. It is designed to make your shared collections look beautiful, responsive, and easy to integrate into any webpage.