Because Adobe continues to make Acrobat Reader a completely free program, and because the use of Acrobat Reader is so widespread, you should always produce a version of your eBook as an Acrobat Reader Document (in .pdf format). Creating a .pdf from your MS Word document file is very simple.
You can use Fine Print conversion printer to accomplish this. Once you have installed Fine Print, you simply need to print your MS Word document using Fine Print as your printer. It will create a .pdf file of the same name and there is your ebook.
It is wise to make some alteration to the .pdf file –for example, you may wish to limit the ability to change text, or to print your file, or to even read the file without a password. Passwording is useful if you are selling your eBook. Anyone can download the file, but to read it they may have to purchase a password.
In the world of print most books are printed in a portrait format (where the book is longer than it is wide). Screens, where you eBook is most likely going to be presented are formatted where the screen is wider than it is long (Landscape Format). If your book is only ever going to be used on a screen, it is a wise idea to consider that you present your eBook in a landscape format. However, if you suspect that your eBook may be printed on paper at some stage it is wise to provide a print version even if you do produce the book landscape. People are more used to a book that is longer than it is wide.
You can produce both versions if your wish. There is nothing much stopping you from providing both versions. Call the Portrait Format a “Print Version” and make both available to your readers. OR if you do not intend that people print the eBook, then you might choose to prepare it only in Landscape Format, and you may also turn the capability of printing the document off when you format it in Adobe Acrobat.
You may also consider the page size for your book –think about where this book might be printed. If you are ever going to sell only in the USA and Canada, then you may consider that the version you produce will be printed on Letter Paper only. However, if you are intending to sell Internationally (which you should since you are on the Internet and anyone anywhere could really purchase from you) then you should consider the European and Oceania standard of A4.
If you do choose A4, you can make a selection in Adobe Acrobat that should someone print the document on Letter, that the document automatically resize to fit the paper being used. In fact, this is the preferred option making your paper size A4 and allowing a downsizing to fit onto Letter paper. If you do it the other way, the pages look rather sparse when printing on A4 and people outside USA are very conscious of using paper. If they are going to use paper they want to cram as much as possible on a page.
When you select File, Print from the MS Word menu to start printing your eBook using Fine Print v1.6 or later, you can choose “Options” from the main print box which will then reveal to you the options for formatting your eBook in Fine Print. These options provide some important decisions to make a book attractive to your potential market.
You can reduce the size of the file housing your eBook by selecting not to embed any fonts in your book. On the other hand, your book may look quite different on other people’s computers if you do not select to embed fonts. The lightest weight file is obtained by using Arial fonts for headings and Times New Roman font for the main text of the book. Do not embed fonts and the chances are that you book will look the same on anyone’s computer as these are the most common fonts across all computers. However, if you want a specific look to your product and size of file is not really important (that is, all of your customers are likely to be internal to your company, and/or you are sure that your customers are on broadband) then, select font very particularly and embed those fonts in your Fine Print options.
Make sure that you also enter the Author ’s name, the company and importantly keywords. If you want this eBook to be lodged as a page on the Internet (even as a.pdf) and you want people to find the eBook by searching on Google or other search engine, then ensure that you embed keywords in your .pdf document. These are used by Google, and other search engines, to store in its database.
Now that you have made selections in Fine Print, go ahead and print a copy to your Brain. Make sure you know the title of the book you printed in your Brain as you will want to attach this document to your thought titled “Adobe Acrobat Document”.
To further refine your product, it is good to open the .pdf file using Adobe Acrobat. When opened there are a number of things you can do in Adobe Acrobat 5.0.5 that you cannot do elsewhere:
1. Set document security options –to accomplish this when you have opened your document in Adobe Acrobat, select File, Document Security –you will then be given two options to build security into your document. The most common option is to set “Acrobat Standard Security”. This will allow you to choose to set a password for opening the document, or set a password that limits Printing, Changing, Copying and/or Extraction of Text. This latter form of security setting is the most common when supplying an eBook to customers. In general, I would allow a customer to print the eBook (as some people just cannot read from a screen yet) but disallow any other type of action.
2. Set reader options –you can limit who the book is read by through setting reader options. However, if you are publishing this book, you may have to register each reader and save a copy of the book with this reader’s name included in the range of the readers.
When you are ready to save your final version of the eBook, make sure you save a copy of the final file to your Brian and to connect that file with a shortcut so that you can locate the final file from within Brain. This will ensure that you have all copies of every text you have created within your Brain.
By storing the final version in Brain you have a permanent record of the eBook you create that will not only be available for you when you come to update it, but also it will be text searchable and will also provide a record of what you have produced for your customers.
When you work through and create a new version, through using the system again, be sure to store a new version of your eBook and do not write over the old version. If you change your book in the new version by 20% of more, you will need to obtain a new ISBN for that new version.