Sundry Works Help · Getting started

Getting started with Sundry Works

What Sundry Works does and how the tabs fit together.

Welcome

Sundry Works is the workshop behind your art business. It takes all the fiddly jobs that used to eat your day - pricing a piece, writing its story, laying out a printed card, making a certificate, building a social reel, sizing photos for the web - and keeps them in one place, each one a click or two away.

You bring one thing to the app: a good photo of the painting. From that single photo, Sundry Works helps you produce everything else. You spend more time at the easel and less time wrangling files.

How it's laid out

Along the top are two rows. The first has five names, which are the five kinds of thing the app does: Catalogue is your paintings and what they are worth, Making is everything you make out of them, Running it is the business round the outside, and then Configuration and Help. Press one and the row underneath shows only its pages.

Catalogue, Making and Running it each carry their own colour - a small dot beside the name, and the same colour again on the row of pages underneath once it's open - so the two rows read as one thing rather than as whichever happens to sit under the other. Configuration and Help stay plain brass, since neither opens a second row for a colour to tie to.

Configuration and Help are a single page each, so they open straight away and there is no second row to read.

The bar remembers where you were in each group. Step out of Making to look something up in the Catalogue, come back, and you are on the reel you were building rather than back at the beginning.

If you ever lose track of which page does what, the All tabs button beside the wordmark opens a card listing every one of them with a line saying what it is for. The brass Paintings button beside it goes straight to your catalogue from wherever you are, and closes the painting you have open on the way, so you arrive at a clean list the way the app looks on its first morning. Press the Paintings tab underneath afterwards and the painting you were working on comes back.

If the writing is too small to read comfortably, the A− 100% A+ buttons at the end of that same row make everything on the screen bigger or smaller, a step at a time from 90% up to 200%. Press the number in the middle to go back to 100%. On the computer, Ctrl and + and Ctrl and − do the same, and Ctrl and 0 goes back to 100%. The size is kept on each device separately, so making the computer bigger leaves the phone as it was. In a web browser the buttons are there on a wide window; on a phone, use the phone's own text size setting or pinch to zoom instead.

Every page also has a short grey line in italics under the name of the painting you're working on, with a small round ? at its end in the colour of the part of the app you are in. Press the line or the ? and a box opens underneath saying what the page is for, where to start, and where the work goes next. More in Help at the foot of that box opens this guide at that page's own topic. Press the ? again, now an ×, to fold it away; it is closed again whenever you change page. On a phone the grey line is hidden to save room, but the ? is still there on the right.

The trick that ties it all together: you open one painting on the Paintings tab, and from then on every other tab is about that painting. Its photo, title, and details flow across on their own, so you never retype anything. The line just under the tabs always tells you which painting you're working on, and its name there is a link - press it and you are back at the list to pick another.

Opposite that line, over on the right, are the nine progress ticks - Image, Details, Caption, Story, Social, Card, Papers, Post, Reel - for whichever painting is open. They follow you from tab to tab, so wherever you are you can see what's done and what's still outstanding.

Each one is a link, and it takes you to the exact spot, not just the tab. Three of them land on the Story tab, which is a long page - the two written panels one under another, and the social captions below them - so clicking Story puts you at the Story panel, with a brass outline round it for a second so you can see where you have been put. Card, Papers, Post and Reel are each a tab in their own right, so those land at the top as you would expect.

The emblem in the top right corner is a working clock, and it hangs down over the end of the tab bar rather than sitting above it - that corner of the bar is empty at every window size, and it takes no clicks, so nothing underneath it is ever out of reach. Scroll down far enough for it to leave the top of the window and a small round portrait appears in the right-hand corner of the tab bar: the fellow from that same emblem, keeping you company now that it has scrolled away. The cream cloud beside him is where the app says "Saving…" and "Saved", and between times he has the odd passing thought of his own. He is decoration and nothing more - he never covers a control, and nothing is lost if your window is too narrow to fit him in.

The ticks keep up as you work - finish a step and it turns green there and then, before you've even saved.

The tabs that make something

Six pages draw a picture: Card for the story card, Papers for the certificate and the back label, Post, Reel, Images, and Business card. The first five are drawn out of the painting you have open; the business card is drawn out of your own details instead, which is why it is the one that works with nothing open. They are all laid out the same way, and the layout follows the size of your window.

On a computer the settings run down the left and the picture stands beside them on the right. It stays put as you scroll the settings, so whatever you are nudging - a colour, a size, where a line sits - you can see what it does without going anywhere to look.

The picture takes every bit of room there is. A tall reel frame fills the height of the window; a wide card or certificate fills the width of its side. Make the window bigger and the picture grows with it.

On a phone or a tablet there is not room for two columns. The picture moves to the top instead and pins itself under the tabs, with the settings scrolling underneath, so it is still in front of you at the last slider as much as at the first.

It takes about a third of the screen there, because the rest of it is the settings you came to move. That is right for a card or a certificate, which is already as wide as a phone at that height, and too small for a reel frame or a tall post - those work their width back from the height, so on a phone they arrive about 150px across, with empty space either side and nothing you can take hold of. So there is a Bigger button in the top right corner of the pinned picture. Press it and the picture fills the whole screen - settings, tabs and all - at better than twice the width, which is the size to drag a painting about at, read the story on a post, or just see what you have made. Press Done in the same corner, or Escape, and you are back where you were with nothing changed. On the Reel, the small row of slides comes with it, so you can step through them at that size without coming out.

Make and Print come at the end, after the settings, with the picture still in view - which is the moment you actually want to press them.

On a narrow window or a tablet

The window can now be made as narrow as you like - useful beside a reference photo on half a screen, or on a Windows tablet held upright.

When there is no longer room for two columns side by side, a tab that has them turns into two views with a switch above: Catalogue or Painting on the Paintings tab, and the same on Contacts, Story, Calendar and this guide. Nothing is hidden - it is the same two panels, one at a time - and opening a painting moves you to it by itself. The six tabs that draw something fold a different way: the picture leaves the right-hand side and pins itself above the settings, so nothing is put behind a switch there either.

The row of tabs still slides sideways, and a small grid button appears at its right end. That opens every tab at once, grouped, with a line each saying what it is for, so you can go straight to Calendar without swiping past ten other names.

The nine progress ticks move too. Instead of sitting opposite the painting's name they drop below it and wrap onto a second row, so all nine stay on the screen and none runs off the edge. They still work the same way - each one is a link to the step it names.

On a touch screen, checklists get up, down and indent buttons in place of the drag handle, because dragging does not work by finger. And on the tabs that draw a card or a reel, tapping into a setting lights up the part of the picture it controls, the same way hovering does with a mouse.

What it costs, and the token that opens it

Sundry Works is $8 a month, or $79 a year. The first 30 days are free and no card is asked for to begin them - at the end it stops and asks whether you want to carry on, and nothing is charged unless you say yes.

When you subscribe you are shown a token: a short piece, a dot, and sixty-four characters after it. That is what opens your catalogue, and it is worth copying somewhere safe at the moment you are shown it, because you are only shown it that way once.

It is not lost if you do not. Any device already signed in can put it back on screen - Configuration, then "Show my token" under Posting on a timer. Each device is asked for it once and remembers it afterwards, which is why setting up a phone means pasting it there too.

It is deliberately not kept in your catalogue. The catalogue is one folder that is copied into every export and shared between your devices, and a token sitting inside it would travel with every copy you ever made. One paste per device is the cost of that.

If every device has lost it, nothing of yours is gone - the catalogue is untouched and so is the queue. Open app.sundry.works in a browser and press "I have lost my token": a link goes to the email address you subscribed with, and opening it issues a new token and puts it on screen. The old one stops working then, so every device needs the new one, and an AI key saved on the service has to be entered again. Subscribing again is not the way back - it would start a separate account with none of your paintings in it - and the app refuses that and cancels the second subscription rather than letting you pay for two.

First, set yourself up once

Before your first painting, visit the Business tab and fill it in: your name, your logo, your brand colours, your website. You do it once, and every card, reel, and certificate you make afterwards uses it automatically. If your logo or address changes later, come back and update it here.

Then the Configuration tab, once, for the things that plug into somewhere else - the key that lets the app write stories, and your Instagram, Facebook, Threads or Bluesky account if you want to post from here. None of it is needed to catalogue a painting, so it can wait until you want it.

A typical workflow, start to finish

Here's how one painting travels through the app, from the moment you scan or photograph it to the moment it's earning its keep:

1. Photograph the finished painting and get the photo onto this computer.
2. Paintings - press New, drop in the photo, and fill in the title, medium, size, and the date you signed it. This becomes the painting's record, and everything else builds on it. Set its price here too, or work one out on the next tab.
3. Pricing - let the app suggest a fair, consistent price from the painting's size, then apply it with one click so your whole catalogue stays in line.
4. Story - have the app write a short fictional story about the piece, plus a caption cut down from it for social posts. The story is what the card, the back label and the reel narration are built from. Keep the versions you like.
5. Card - lay out a print-ready card with the title, story, and your branding, then export it as a PNG to send to the printer for shows and sales.
6. Papers - make the painting's two printed documents: the certificate to hand over when it sells, and the label to glue on its back.
7. Post and Reel - build branded images and a vertical video for Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, using the caption and story you already wrote.
8. Images - export web-sized, watermarked copies of the photo to put on your website or a shop page.

Where it all ends up

By the end you have, from one photo: a priced catalogue record, a written story, a printed card, a certificate, social posts and a reel, and web-ready images. The printed pieces go to your printer, the social pieces go to Instagram and Facebook (the app can even post them for you), and the web images go to your site.

Everything stays on this computer. Nothing is uploaded anywhere unless you ask for it - the exceptions are writing a story (which sends a request to Claude) and posting directly to social media (which sends to Instagram or Facebook).

You don't have to do every step for every painting - use whichever tabs you need. But always open a painting on the Paintings tab first. Nothing else works until one is open, because every other tab is about the painting you have open.

A few other tabs to know about

• Sales - what has sold, who bought it, and what it brought in. It reads your catalogue, so there is nothing to keep up to date separately.
• Contacts - a simple address book for galleries, collectors, suppliers, and organizers.
• Lists - reusable checklists for the things you repeat, like show prep or framing day.
• Calendar - shows, submission deadlines and events, each with a countdown telling you how many days are left.
• Overview - the first tab, and where the app opens. It gathers the calendar, your lists and your unfinished paintings onto one screen. If you'd rather not have it, you can switch it off in Business.
• Help - this tab. Each job has its own topic in the Topics list, so when you're on a tab and unsure what a control does, the answer is here.

Keeping up to date

From 1.70.0 onwards the app updates itself. It checks when you open it, downloads a new version quietly in the background, and installs it when you close Sundry Works. There is nothing to set up and nothing to decide.

When one is waiting you will see a small marker beside the version number, which sits next to the wordmark at the top of the page, and a line offering "Install it now" if you would rather not wait for the next time you close the app. "Later" hides the line, not the update - closing the app still installs it.

If it cannot check - no internet, or the site is having a moment - it says nothing at all and tries again next time you open the app. The only thing it will ever tell you is that an update is ready.

The phone copy is a website, so it updates itself the moment a new version is published. There is nothing to do there either.

Keyboard shortcuts

A few keys save a trip to the mouse. They work anywhere in the app, and pressing ? at any time (or clicking "Shortcuts" beside the wordmark) brings up the full list.

• Ctrl+S - save the open painting on the spot, without waiting for the usual autosave.
• Ctrl+N - start a new painting.
• Alt+Left and Alt+Right - step to the previous or next painting, whichever tab you're on. They follow whatever the Paintings list is showing, so a search or a filter set over there is what they walk; with nothing narrowing it, that's the whole catalogue in A-Z order. It's the quick way through a shelf of pieces, since the Story, Card and Reel all follow the painting you land on. The same two steps are a pair of buttons in the top right corner of the line under the tab bar.
• ? shows the list, Escape closes it.

On a Mac, use the Command key in place of Ctrl and the Option key in place of Alt.

The rest of the Help

Start here

• Getting started with Sundry Works - What Sundry Works does and how the tabs fit together.
• Using Sundry Works on your phone - Setting up the phone, whether or not there is a computer as well.

Your catalogue

• What's due and what's unfinished - The first tab: what's coming up, what's still to do, what's unfinished.
• Cataloguing your paintings - Your catalog - add paintings and open the one you're working on.
• Reviewing everything one painting makes - Everything the open painting makes, on one page, with the one decision each needs.
• How to price a painting consistently - Work out a consistent price for the open painting.
• Tracking what sold and who bought it - What sold, who took it home, and what it brought in.
• Printing show labels and a portfolio - More than one at a time: a whole show's labels, or a portfolio to send.

Making things from a painting

• Writing a story for a painting - Generate a written story for the painting and keep the best one.
• Making a printed card for a painting - Lay out the printed card for the painting.
• How to make a certificate of authenticity - A painting's two printed documents: its certificate, and the label for its back.
• Web-sized copies of a painting's photo - Export web-sized copies of the painting's photo.
• Branded posts of your paintings - Branded static posts for Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.
• Making a reel of a painting - Build the vertical reel frame and video for social media.
• Designing an artist's business card - The card you hand out, laid out down to the last millimetre.

Running the business

• Setting up your artist brand - Set up once: your identity, brand assets, colours, and AI key.
• An address book for galleries and collectors - A simple address book for galleries, collectors, suppliers, and more.
• Checklists for shows and studio jobs - Reusable checklists for shows, errands, and anything you repeat.
• A calendar for shows and deadlines - Shows, deadlines, and events, with a countdown to each one.
• All your post comments in one list - What people said on your posts, from every platform, in one list.

Connections and setup

• Posting to Instagram and Facebook - Connect your accounts so you can post directly from Sundry Works.
• Posting your paintings to Threads - A second Meta connection, separate from Instagram and Facebook.
• Posting your paintings to Bluesky - The easiest connection of the four - a handle and an app password.
• Scheduling posts to go out later - Line a post up now and let it go out later, with the computer off.
• Configuring Sundry Works - Where everything plugs in: your social accounts, your website, your AI service, and where the catalogue lives.