Interested in writing a novel? An anthology of your best writing? How about a cookbook with all your greatest recipes? With eBooks being front and centre in the news with Apple’s recent announcement about iBooks Author, you may be thinking that it’s high time to create your own eBooks.
Fortunately, there are simple DIY methods you can employ to create your own eBook. Having a PDF or your work is a good start, but how do you get that PDF into something that remotely resembles an eBook?
What follows are a few DIY tips for Sonic PDF Creator that can help get your PDF looking less like a PDF and acting more like an eBook you can call your own.
Convert Word to PDF
If you’re a writer who prefers to write by hand, you’ll need to get your work into digital format first. A word processing program, like Microsoft Word, is a good place to start. It generates a good standard document file format for converting to PDF.
When your work is done and saved in MS Word format, use Sonic PDF to convert it to PDF. Just open your Word file in Sonic using the Create PDF From File… option in the File menu. Once converted, the PDF will be automatically opened in Sonic.
Format Your Content
Depending on the nature of your eBook, one creative option you might want to try with Sonic is the Create Handout feature. Sometimes PDF pages displayed side by side will work better for certain content. For instance, if diagrams and text are separated by a page break or if it’s a children’s book with a lot of pictures in it, fixing the layout can dramatically improve your reader’s viewing experience.
To do this with Sonic, go to Tools> Create Handout… For an eBook, you’ll want to get 2 pages on a single PDF page at most. Any more than that and your pages will be hard to read as a book.
There are a few major options you’ll need to set. You’ll first need to set the Paper Orientation to Landscape. Then in the first part of the Layout section (seen above), select “custom” in the drop down menu, then set Rows to 1 and Columns to 2. This will give you 2 pages across on one page, making it look like a real book that’s been opened.
We actually covered this feature before in our post, Investintech How-To Tip: Create A Handout From A PDF Document. So feel free to use it as a handy reference sheet for details on setting margins, crop marks and other formatting elements.
Add Bookmarks
Bookmarks are a must for any eBook of significant length. They provide a compact bird’s eye view of your content. Without them, you can turn your readers off as they search and scroll through the pages.
To add bookmarks in Sonic, go to the Tools menu and select Add Bookmarks…
- Click on New bookmark
- Select Go to Page from the drop down box (this is the default option)
- In the Label field, type in the name of the bookmark
- Enter the PDF page number for the bookmark (Page 1 of your document is usually converted to Page 1 in your PDF)
- Click on Save Item. Repeat steps 1-5 for any additional bookmarks you want to create
- Once all bookmarks are set, click on Apply
Once you’re done, turn on the Bookmark Window option in the View menu to see your bookmarks.
Add Footers and Headers
Footers and headers can do a couple of things to give your eBook a polished touch. You can use these for adding page numbers and add a consistent branding element throughout your book. Using the title of your book, your name as author or the titles of each chapter, you can add the same finishing touch you see in regular books.
Go into the Format menu and select Header and Footer. . . In the dialog box, enter the information you want displayed in either the header or footer section. Set the font, margins and page range. Then click on OK.
Keeping Your eBook Safe
Shy about other people reading your work? Don’t want others stealing your ideas? Sending it to a single editor or colleague for review? No problem. Sonic PDF Creator can lock that eBook down for you.
Sonic’s security features let you protect your PDF from unauthorized users or viewers. From the Tools menu, select Set Password (note: you can also set up security options when you first create your PDF with the Create Secure PDF from file. . . option from the File menu).
To let a single reader or a select few read your work, you can add a password so no one else has access to it but them. For an eBook you’re sharing more publicly, you can still restrict user access by focusing more on the Permissions section that will let you decide how you want others handling your eBook.
Another option to warn users that your eBook is for their eyes only is to add a watermark. You can do this by stamping text on the title page. From the Format menu, select Stamp Text. . .
Add your text and customize where and how you want it displayed. Once you’re all set, click on OK.
These features are just a sampling of what you can do with Sonic PDF Creator. Getting e-published doesn’t have to be hard or even on a large scale. You can do it yourself–for yourself, at even the most basic level. So give these tips a try and see how they work out for your PDF.
If you know of a few other handy Sonic tips we missed, let us know. We’d love to hear them!
