The Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com e book was created using MS Word 2007. I went through my entire blog to copy and paste all the posts I wanted to include in the book. After copying all the posts, it was time to organize them into chapters. This was the most time consuming part because some posts could work with more than one chapter.
After I got all the posts in the proper order, I updated those posts that needed updating. Most of the time, it was just some stats that needed updating. For example, an older post would state my RSS count during the time the post was made. I changed the number to reflect the current count.
When everything was the way I wanted it, I used MS Word to auto create the table of content, header, footer and cover page.
Producing The PDF File
Making a PDF out of a Word document is suppose to be very simple but I ran into a few problems. My first attempt was to use free software call CutePDF Writer. The program is very easy to use – hit print, but instead of printing to your printer, you print to the PDF creator. Creating a PDF file with CutePDF didn’t work as planned. The software outputted the file, but all the links got lost.
This was when Justin of My PC Rig told me to try OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org is a an open-source multiplatform office suite. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute. It also have a built in PDF creator.
In order to use Open Office, I had to save my Word 2007 document as a doc file. Word 2007 uses a new docx extension that Open Office can’t open. Once the book was loaded into Open Office, I just hit File and choose Export as PDF.
The above PDF options screen pops up. Be default, the image output quality is set to 90%. I changed to 100% because I wanted the highest quality possible.
The last thing I needed to do before outputting the e book into a PDF file is to set the security. I turn off the ability to modify the file and disable copying of content. When everything was to my liking, I hit the Export button and five seconds later, I had a brand new e book ready to people to download.
Looking back on it, I should have done everything in Open Office, but this is my first e book and it was a good learning experience.
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