Works
Learn how to manage artworks in WrkLst, including creating inventories, adding artists and artworks, editing, multi-editing, and working with editions.
Creating New Artwork
How to add a work to WrkLst: what needs to exist first, where the form opens, which fields it holds, and how to fill it faster by pasting a caption or dropping in images. This article describes WrkLst 10. The order to do things in A work in WrkLst is not an isolated entry: it belongs to an artist and it lives in an inventory. Creating those two things first means the work has somewhere to go and someone to belong to, and it saves you from tidying up afterwards. 1. Create the artist contact — see Create a New Artist Contact. 2. Set up the inventory the work belongs to — a group of works, usually one per artist or collection. See Inventories. 3. Create the work itself. A new account opens on a Getting started card on the Dashboard that walks through exactly these steps: Create an inventory, Add your first work, Add your artists and clients. Dismiss the card when you are done; Customize brings it back. Opening the form Open Works and pick the inventory section you want to work in — the picker has a search box, Search sections, so a long list is no obstacle. Then choose Add work. The form opens in the page itself, with the inventory section already set; if you start from All Works, pick the Inventory section first, because the form asks for it before anything else. Open Works and choose: 1 Search… · 2 Filter · 3 Switch view · 4 Basket · 5 Add work Open Works and choose: 1 Search… · 2 Filter · 3 Switch view · 4 Basket · 5 Add work The same form is used wherever you edit a work. If you open a sale, shipment, exhibition, consignment, list or presentation and edit one of its works, the editor opens right there and saving takes you back to that work inside the record. What the form holds The form is divided into sections, so you can fill in as much or as little as you have: The form for a new work. The form for a new work. - Basic data — Inventory number (the form tells you whether a number is still free, and Get next free # picks the next one), Legacy / external number, Title, Alternative title, Year, Medium, Type. - Artists — Add artist, or Create new artist without leaving the form. - Dimensions — one or more sizes with height, width and depth, a Size unit, and Swap height / width for the quick fix. - Prices — one or more prices with Currency and Tax; Set as active price marks the one that is used, and Prices are confidential hides them from users without the permission to see them. - Edition and Group / set — see Create and Manage Editions. - Artwork images, Videos and Attached documents — upload, add a link, or search what is already in the Media Library. - Locations — where the work is and since when; Track shelf location adds the shelf. - Provenance, Condition, Certificate, Insurance values (insurance value, estimated value, date and source) and Acquisition (Acquired from, Acquisition date, Acquisition price). - Tags, Notes (with Confidential notes), Packing, Production & framing and Related works. The sale status of a work — hold, sold, donated — is not set in the form but from the work's Actions menu; see Holds & Sales. Paste a caption instead of typing The Import tools section at the top of the form has a Drop caption tab. Paste a caption as you would find it on a price list or in an email — artist, title and year, medium, size — and choose Fill found information: WrkLst copies the title, year, medium, size, price and artist it found into the fields below. The pasted text itself is not saved. If AI features are switched on for your account, Use AI-assisted extraction reads less tidy text as well. The File import tab does the same with a document: upload a PDF, Word or OpenDocument file of up to 25 MB, pick the pages to read, and choose a work if several are found. For many works at once, use the Artwork Import instead — see Automatic Import: let AI do the data entry. Add images Drag photos straight onto the work's image area, or use Add Images. They upload in the order you drop them, and you can name the Photo credit or Choose photographer once for the whole batch. See Artwork images: upload, edit, view and download. On the work: 1 Enlarge image · 2 Add Images On the work: 1 Enlarge image · 2 Add Images When a colleague is already editing a work, its button reads Edit (in use), so two people cannot overwrite each other — see Editing and Multi-Editing. One record, the whole life of the work WrkLst keeps a single record per work and everything attaches to it: images and documents, exhibitions, consignments, shipments, holds and sales, and its location. The more complete the record is at the outset, the more useful every later module becomes. Still using WrkLst Classic? This topic in the Classic documentation: Creating New Artwork Related articles - Editing and Multi-Editing - Create and Manage Editions - Works: inventories, filter and search, views and the basket - Automatic Import: let AI do the data entry - Artwork images: upload, edit, view and download
Works: inventories, filter and search, views and the basket
How Works is organised: inventories, the three views, search and filter, the list that stays beside an open work, and the basket for building a selection of works from anywhere. This article describes WrkLst 10. Moving between inventories Your works are grouped into inventories, and you switch between them to change what you are looking at. Opening Works shows the inventory sections to choose from, with a Search sections box, or All Works for everything at once. See Inventories if you need to create or rename one. The works list and its toolbar: 1 Search… · 2 Filter · 3 Switch view · 4 Basket · 5 Add work The works list and its toolbar: 1 Search… · 2 Filter · 3 Switch view · 4 Basket · 5 Add work Under Settings → My Profile → Preferences you set the Default view and the default sort order an inventory opens with. Three views The view button in the Works toolbar — or Alt+V — steps through three views: - Grid view — a card grid of thumbnails. - Card list view — a large picture beside the work's details, its price, owner, location, consignment and exhibition. - Table view — a sortable table. Click anywhere on a row to open the work; the buttons at the end of the row stay in place on the right, and on a narrow window the table scrolls sideways rather than squeezing its columns. The works inside a list, exhibition, consignment, sale, shipment or presentation have their own view button in the section header — List view, Card list view or pictures — and a small button for their order: Custom order, or by inventory number ascending or descending. A work beside the list Open a work and the list stays beside it. Previous record and Next record step through the list while the work stays open, and the list has its own search and filter, so you can look for the next record without closing the one you are reading. Focus current record jumps back to the open work in the list; it only appears when that work is in the list you are looking at. A work open beside the list, with the bar at the bottom: 1 Edit · 2 Actions · 3 Share as · 4 Next record A work open beside the list, with the bar at the bottom: 1 Edit · 2 Actions · 3 Share as · 4 Next record How wide the list is, is yours to choose: under WrkLst 10 at the foot of the menu, Layout settings offers Full list, Thumbnails only (hover one to see the whole row) or Hidden. Each part of WrkLst remembers its own setting. Right-click or ⌘/Ctrl-click a work to open it in a new browser tab, handy for comparing two records side by side. Searching and filtering Filter and search narrow a large archive down to the works you actually need, and a filtered view is the starting point for most other work in WrkLst: an exhibition checklist, a consignment or a client selection usually begins here. The filter panel: 1 Filter · 2 Reset · 3 Close The filter panel: 1 Filter · 2 Reset · 3 Close Type in the search box, or open Filter. The filter panel groups its choices: Search (artist, title, year, medium, series, tags, location, Size ±20% and Price ±20%, framed or not), Availability (Available, On hold, Sold, Donated, Gift, Resale, Consigned, Offered, Not available), Relationships (the shipment, exhibition, list, consignment or presentation a work is on, its owner or consultant, its assigned gallery, and Acquired from — the gallery, dealer or auction house you bought it from) and Grouping (Group editions, Group parents, Hide group members). Reset filter clears everything. The Sort order menu orders by inventory number, year, size, price, series or artist name. The basket The basket works like a shopping cart for artworks. Add to basket on any work, or Add current results to basket and Remove current results from basket from the Basket menu in Works, build a selection across views and inventories. The basket then sits next to Works in the main menu with a count of what is in it, and from anywhere in WrkLst you can Show basket, Save basket to new list, Save basket to existing list, Load list into basket, Share basket or Clear basket. Saving and loading use a dialog with a searchable list picker; see Lists. The basket menu: 1 Basket The basket menu: 1 Basket The buttons on a work card: 1 Add to basket · 2 Edit · 3 Share as · 4 Actions The buttons on a work card: 1 Add to basket · 2 Edit · 3 Share as · 4 Actions A selection is where most records start. Pick works and choose Ship, Exhibit, Consign, Present, Offer, Hold or Sell: the new record opens with those works already on it, with their prices, captions and sizes filled in. Share basket generates documents from a template, and Delete works… in the basket menu removes several works at once — the dialog lists exactly which works go and which stay, because a work on a sale, in a group, on a shipment, in an exhibition or on a consignment is kept. See Editing and Multi-Editing. Still using WrkLst Classic? This topic in the Classic documentation: Inventory, Filter and Search, and the Selections Tool Related articles - Lists - Editing and Multi-Editing - Presentations - Collection Values (C-Values) - Appearance, menu and layout
Create and Manage Editions
How to set up an edition on a work, how its numbered copies and artist's proofs are managed, and how editioned works behave in the list, the basket and multi-edit. This article describes WrkLst 10. What an edition is in WrkLst An editioned work is managed as one record that carries its individual numbers and artist's proofs, rather than as a pile of near-identical entries. That keeps the inventory readable: you see the work, and within it you see which numbers exist and what has happened to each. Setting up an edition Open the work's form and expand the Edition section. 1. Tick This work is part of an edition. 2. Leave Managed edition switched on for a Defined edition — one whose copies WrkLst keeps track of. Switch it off for a Custom edition, which is just an Edition text that appears in the caption, for a work whose copies you do not manage individually. 3. For a defined edition, enter the Edition size, the number of Artist proofs and of Exhibition copies, or tick Unlimited. Show edition in caption adds the edition to the work's caption; Edition notes holds anything else. The tabs Editions, Artist proofs and Exhibition copies then list every number — "Edition 1 of 5", "AP 1 of 2" — and show which work fills it. Mark the copy you are editing with This is the current work, create a copy from it with Create a new work from this one, or attach a work that already exists with Search works to attach. Fill empty copies with new works from this one creates a record for every number still empty in one go. If you set an edition size of 1, WrkLst asks whether you mean it and offers to Deactivate edition instead. Editions in the works list In the works filter, Editions only shows editioned works alone, and Group editions collapses an edition into a single entry with a count of its copies, so a print run does not fill the grid with lookalikes. Group editions can be your default under Settings → My Profile → Preferences. Opening a grouped edition takes you to the first available copy; the setting Navigate grouped editions to the first edition instead of first available under Settings → General Account changes that. Editing a whole edition at once Multi-edit from an edition loads the whole edition — every copy, including the artist's proofs — rather than only the copy you were looking at. The multi-edit form shows the same panels and fields as the normal editor, with a tick box beside each one, so a price change, a new location or a corrected medium reaches every copy in one operation while the inventory number stays per work. See Editing and Multi-Editing. Why it matters for pricing Managed editions count as a single record for subscription purposes. An edition of five plus two artist's proofs is one record, not seven — see Subscription. Still using WrkLst Classic? This topic in the Classic documentation: Create and Manage Editions Related articles - Creating New Artwork - Editing and Multi-Editing - Works: inventories, filter and search, views and the basket - Holds & Sales
Editing and Multi-Editing
How to edit a single work, change many works at once with multi-edit, read what changed in a record's history, and delete or recover works. This article describes WrkLst 10. Editing a single work Open the work and choose Edit. The form opens in the page, with the same sections as when you created the work — see Creating New Artwork. Change what you need and save; Work saved confirms it. Because everything in WrkLst hangs off the work record — images, documents, exhibitions, consignments, shipments, holds and sales — keeping it accurate is what makes the rest of the system trustworthy. The bar at the bottom of an open work: 1 Edit · 2 Actions · 3 Share as · 4 Next record The bar at the bottom of an open work: 1 Edit · 2 Actions · 3 Share as · 4 Next record The edit form opens in the page. The edit form opens in the page. The same editor opens when you edit a work from inside a sale, shipment, exhibition, consignment, list or presentation, and saving takes you straight back to that work inside the record. Working alongside colleagues When someone else is already editing a work, its button reads Edit (in use) and the form names who is working on it. If the work changes while you have it open, WrkLst tells you before you save: Reload to get the latest version, then apply your changes again. After a period of inactivity your edit access is released; Check status tells you whether the record is still free, so you can Reclaim editing, or whether a colleague has taken it over. Multi-editing Multi-editing applies the same change to a group of works in one operation. It is the right tool whenever the same correction or update applies across many records: a location change after a rehang, a credit line that needs standardising, a price adjustment across an artist's work, or a batch of records imported with the same missing field. 1. Build the group first with filter, search or the basket — see Works: inventories, filter and search, views and the basket. Multi-edit needs at least two works; opened from an edition, it loads every copy, artist's proofs included. 2. Choose Multi-edit. The form shows the same panels and fields as the normal editor, with a tick box beside each one; only ticked fields are applied. Use … as template pre-fills the fields with one work's values. 3. Choose the Mode. By default, ticked panels replace the matching entries on every selected work. Add only (keep existing entries) adds new entries in list panels — prices, locations and the like — on top of what is there, while ticked single fields are still replaced. 4. Check the summary — Will be applied to … works, with each entry marked as added or replacing — and choose Apply to … works. The inventory number is never changed by a multi-edit. Availability has its own switch, Change availability — Set all available, Set all not available or Keep as is — and WrkLst warns you that this cannot be undone. A word of caution Multi-editing is fast, which is exactly why it is worth checking the selection before you commit. Make sure the works in front of you are the works you meant to change. What changed, and by whom Every work has a Change history that reads each entry the way the rest of WrkLst does — "5 Apr 2018, 19:39 by Tobias", in your language and your own time. Next to an entry, What changed shows the details that edit touched, the old value and the new one side by side. It is available to administrators, for changes Privacy · Terms ·in the past year. A record that was recovered after deletion shows that too, and by whom. Deleting works Delete on a work opens a confirmation that spells out what happens to linked records: which are deleted with the work because it is the only work on them, which are kept with their other works, and which sales block the deletion until the work is removed from them. A work that is part of a group has to be disconnected from the group first. More actions on a work: 1 More actions More actions on a work: 1 More actions To delete several works at once, put them in the basket and choose Delete works… from the basket menu. The dialog lists which works go and which stay — a work on a sale, in a group, on a shipment, in an exhibition or on a consignment is kept — and you confirm by typing the number of works being deleted. A deleted work can be brought back within seven days from Settings → Toolbox → Recover recent records; its history then shows the recovery — see Toolbox: recover deleted records and tidy up. Still using WrkLst Classic? This topic in the Classic documentation: Editing and Multi-Editing Related articles - Works: inventories, filter and search, views and the basket - Creating New Artwork - Create and Manage Editions - Toolbox: recover deleted records and tidy up - Media Library
Automatic Import: let AI do the data entry
Drop in a spreadsheet, a PDF catalogue, a document or the link to a page listing your works, and let WrkLst prepare the records. You review and approve every one before it is added. This article describes WrkLst 10. What you can drop in - A spreadsheet — CSV, TSV, XLSX, XLS, ODS, XLSM or JSON. Spreadsheets are read one file at a time, up to the first 2000 rows. - A PDF, or a document in DOCX, ODT, DOC, RTF, Pages, WPS or FODT — a catalogue, a price list, a condition report. - The address of a web page that lists works: a gallery page, an auction page, an Artlogic private view or a WrkLst presentation. Each file can be up to 25 MB. WrkLst reads what it finds and catalogues the works, which removes most of the typing from a migration or a new consignment list. If you come from ARTBUTLER, GalleryManager or Gyst, dedicated importers map those systems' fields straight onto WrkLst. Where to find it Open Settings → General Account → Import and choose Open Artwork Import under AI Artwork Import, or choose Import works from the Works screen. The importer needs AI features to be switched on for your account; an administrator does that under Settings → General Account → AI features. For a single work, the work form's own Drop caption and File import tabs may be all you need — see Creating New Artwork. The import. The import. How an import runs 1. Choose files or drag them in, or paste a link and choose Import from URL. Then Start Import. WrkLst shows what it is doing: uploading, reading the page or document, reading images, extracting artwork data. 2. For a spreadsheet, WrkLst proposes which column holds which field — artist, title, year, medium, inventory number, credit, copyright, dimensions in one column or as height, width and depth, price and currency, image address. Adjust anything that is wrong, set the Dimensions unit used where a size has none, and Apply mapping. 3. Every work then appears in a review table, in your language, with a count of how many are selected and how many need a check. Artists are matched to your existing contacts automatically; a name without a match is created as a new artist on import, and you can click any artist to change the match. Click a thumbnail to choose the work's image or images; click a work's Page link to open the source PDF beside the table. Show / hide columns keeps the table to the fields you care about, and Remove work or Include work decides what goes in. 4. Pick the Target inventory and choose Import … works. WrkLst reports how many works were created, and View in inventory takes you to them; Import more starts the next file. Nothing is added without you Every record is presented for review first. You approve what is correct, fix what is not, and discard the rest. The import never writes straight into your inventory behind your back. Consent and transparency Automatic import is an AI feature, and it is labelled as one. WrkLst does not run AI over your data without your active, prior consent, so nothing here happens until you have agreed to it. AI can also be switched off for the entire workspace. How the AI is handled Processing runs on open-source models hosted in Switzerland. The prompts used to extract your data are never recorded and are never used to train AI models. See Does WrkLst use AI on my data?. Larger migrations If you are moving an existing database or a pile of spreadsheets into WrkLst, we do that with you rather than leaving you to it. Contact support@wrklst.art. Related articles - Creating New Artwork - Editing and Multi-Editing - Import contacts from a file or your phone - Inventories - Does WrkLst use AI on my data?
View in Room
View in Room previews any artwork at true scale in a virtual room, so a client can see how it lives on a wall before it leaves the crate — on the screen, through the camera in AR, and with your own 3D models. This article describes WrkLst 10. What it does The preview uses the work's real dimensions, which is the whole point: it is not an impression, it is the actual size of the piece in a room. Flat works hang centred at eye level the way they would really be hung, and sculpture and crated works can be previewed too. Open a work and expand its View in Room section. In the viewer you choose the Measurement it is shown at when a work has several, the Placement — on the Wall or Free in the room — and whether a Figure or a Bench stands beside it for scale, with the Figure height of your choice. Drag to rotate the room, shift- or ⌘-drag to pan and shift- or ⌘-scroll to zoom; Fullscreen fills the screen for a client. In the work's form, each size in the Dimensions section can be marked as the View in Room default and given its own View in Room image, so a diptych or a work with and without frame is shown with the right picture at the right size. The artwork, not the wall An installation photo does not bring the wall around the work into the room. View in Room finds the artwork in the picture by itself and shows just that, checked against the work's measurements. The Crop for View in Room button in the viewer lets you choose Automatic, Manual — drag the corners so the box covers exactly the artwork, with Keep the measured proportions to hold the ratio — or Whole image. Only View in Room uses this crop; the image itself stays exactly as it is everywhere else. AR: the work on your own wall On iPhone, iPad and Android, View in AR places the work at its real size through the camera. Choose On a wall or On the floor, tap the wall or floor to hang or place the work, and tap again to move it. Your own 3D models For sculpture and objects, add a 3D model under the work's 3D Models section with Add 3D model: a GLB file works best, USDZ works too, up to 100 MB, and the model should have the work's real size. View in Room and AR then show the real object instead of a box, on the wall or on the floor. If the file is not at the right size, WrkLst says so and offers Fit to the dimensions. Where a model comes from: an iPhone Pro (12 Pro or newer) or an iPad Pro scans an object in a few minutes — in the WrkLst app, which adds the model to the work, or in Apple's Reality Composer, whose USDZ file you add here. Matte objects with some texture scan best; mirrors, glass, polished metal and very thin parts do not. For finer detail, a handheld 3D scanner or a scanning service, as museums use them, delivers a GLB at real size, and a model built in Blender, SketchUp, Rhino or Cinema 4D can be exported as .glb. Units Dimensions can be shown in centimetres or inches, so the same preview works for a European and an American client. When to use it It answers the question clients ask most often and photographs answer worst — how big is it, really. It is also useful internally when planning a hang and deciding what fits a wall. Related articles - Presentations - Creating New Artwork - Artwork images: upload, edit, view and download - Exhibitions
Artwork images: upload, edit, view and download
How to add images to a work, rotate them and set their focal point, view them full screen, choose the colour behind them, and download or copy them in the size you need. This article describes WrkLst 10. Adding images Drag photos straight onto a work's image area, or use Add Images. They upload right there, in the order you drop them, and you can enter the Photo credit or Choose photographer once for the whole batch. Each file can be up to 100 MB. On the work: 1 Enlarge image · 2 Add Images On the work: 1 Enlarge image · 2 Add Images In the work's form, the Artwork images section does the same with Upload image, and Search existing images attaches a picture that is already in the Media Library. There you also mark the Primary image with Make primary, move images earlier or later, and decide per image whether it is Publishable — the setting that controls what leaves the house in presentations, documents and the image download. Editing an image Edit image opens the image editor: set the Rotation, and click the image — or nudge with the arrow keys, Shift for bigger steps — to set the focal point, the spot that crops and covers centre on. The preview shows exactly what will be displayed. The same editor opens from the Media Library, from a record's documents and from the media form. A file's name, Credit, Documentarian / photographer and Confidential flag are edited in the Media Library — see Media Library. Viewing images full screen Click any artwork image to open the Image viewer. Zoom in with the scroll wheel, a pinch or a double-click, pan around the detail, and open Details to read the full caption beside the image — artist, title, medium, dimensions, edition, signature and credits, price and location. Swipe or use the arrow keys to move through a work's images and, when you opened it from a list, straight on to the next work. Enlarged from a sale, the viewer shows the same full caption plus a link back to the work inside the sale. The image viewer. The image viewer. Documents and videos attached to a work open in place as well: PDFs page through in the window, Vimeo and YouTube play inline, and Download or Open in new tab are always one tap away, on the phone as on the desktop. The colour behind images The colour that sits behind your artwork — in the work detail, the enlarged view and every image frame — is set under Settings → General Account → Image background: one colour for light mode and one for dark mode, or Reset to default to put both back to the WrkLst colour. It applies to everyone in your account. Downloading images Open a work and expand its Artwork Images section to download any single image at the size you need, or Download all from the section header. For a selection — the basket, or the works you have found — choose Download Images from the share menu. The dialog asks for the Image selection (Only primary image, Publishable images or All images), whether to Include captions and in which Caption style (Base data, Owner / credit or Price / owner / credit), and the Sizes: Hires (JPEG, 3000 px wide), Lores (1500 px), Quick (800 px) or Raw, the original file. Then Start download; the file is prepared on the server and waits under Downloads in the header until it is ready. Whether images download under their original filename or a contextual one is set under Settings → General Account. Copying an image or a caption The Copy menu on a work shows its Image: right-click it and choose "Copy Image" to paste it straight into an email or document. Copy caption puts the caption on the clipboard, with Price, Owner and Credits included as you choose, without any stray formatting. Related articles - Creating New Artwork - Media Library - View in Room - Presentations - Document templates: PDFs, Word and Excel on your own letterhead