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How To Create A Printable Valentine’s Day PDF Coupon Booklet With Sonic

It’s always tough coming up with the perfect gift for our loved ones, especially around Valentine’s Day when generic chocolate boxes and teddy bears take the spotlight. Have you found that ideal gift yet?

If not and you’re thinking of gifting something creative and genuine this year, a Valentine’s Day coupon booklet might just be the thing you’re looking for.

The idea behind this concept is to customize each coupon with actions  and treats that others can “cash in” on. The more you know the person, the more meaningful your coupon gift can be.  So if your significant other hates a certain chore, you can create a coupon offering to do it for them. It’s a great (free) way to give a personal gift that keeps on giving!

Valentine printable gift

Getting them into a PDF booklet is just a handy way of getting them in a format you can save and instantly print up and give out.  But you may find it difficult to get the formatting just right for a printable book.   An easy way to do this is by using the Create Booklet feature in Sonic.

It can create and format a booklet from regular PDF files intended for professional print and assembly, like brochures and pamphlets.  And we can certainly use the feature for basic DIY booklet projects like this one.

Creating A Simple Printable PDF Booklet

You’ll first need to generate your coupons, which calls for  a bit of careful thinking.  To help here are a few ideas to get you going:

  • Offer coupons for your kids to stay up for one hour or to get some extra dessert
  • Spouses who are always fixing things around the house  can offer to handle the next household disaster
  • Boyfriends can include coupons to sit in on a chick flick with their girlfriends
  • For friends, how about a coupon to buy the next round of drinks?

After you have your  ideas, you can create your own coupons from scratch in Microsoft Office Word with text boxes and a bit of formatting.  We used a Word template because of its simplicity.  We customized the text, added some fine print, and saved it to our computer.

Valentine Coupon Template

Our template only offered 2 coupons per page, so we used 8 of them, customized each, and batch converted them. We then merged all the PDFs to get a single 8 page PDF with 16 coupons for this tutorial.

When you have your own file ready to go:

1) In Sonic, use the Create PDF From File command to browse, select and convert your MS Word to PDF.

2) Click on the Create Booklet option

Create PDF Booklet Sonic

3) Select your options.

i) For a basic booklet, select Landscape mode and LETTER sized paper.

Sonic Create Booklet options

ii) Under Scale, select Auto. Ensure Proportionally is selected.

iii) Leave the Margins default settings to leave room for any personalizations you’ll want to add in after it’s printed.

iv) For Binding Type, select Book. Set the Sheets per Fold setting at 4.  This works for an 8 page PDF with 2 coupons per page. It combines 2 pages onto one, allowing you to bind the pages at the centre. When folded, you get single-sided coupons which are perfect for cutting out.

Valentine Sonic booklet layout

v) Crop Marks and Bleed Allowance can be left to their default values.

4) Add any other elements that are appropriate:

  • Add a secure PDF password to keep the PDF coupons secure and prevent any other print outs.
  • If there’s no set expiration date, add a watermark down the length of each page first to keep track of them.
  • Go back and add a cover page to the booklet. Insert a blank page you can stamp an image on or add a page from another PDF.

5) Save the PDF booklet to your computer, print it out, and bind the pages.

Here’s what ours looked like, fresh off the printer with the above settings and an added cover page. As you can see, you’ll have a lot of freedom to jazz it up in your own style:

Printed Valentine PDF Booklet

If you haven’t used the feature yet, now is a good time to get acquainted with it. So go ahead and start in on your own booklet.  No doubt, you’ll have a lot of original and thoughtful coupons to generate.

Main Photo Credit: Patricia Mellin via photopin cc

4 Ways Investintech Can Help You Keep Your New Year’s Resolution

Happy New Year 2014

New Year’s resolutions are perhaps the hardest promises to keep. It’s not uncommon to give up half way through the year on them whether it’s due to lack of energy, determination or support. For whatever reason, it happens to the best of us.

With that in mind, we thought the first post of the year should be one to get you started on the right track with your 2014 resolution. Though we can’t always be there to give you a small push of encouragement whenever you fall astray, we can offer a few ideas on how you can use our tools to help with some of the most common New Year’s resolutions being made.

Resolution: To Live A Healthier Lifestyle

It’s always proven that the best way to achieve a goal is to track your progress and keep milestones in view.  If you look for tracking sheets online to help you stay on top of your fitness and health goals, you’ll find that most of these are in the PDF format.

fitness tracking sheet

Use Able2Extract Pro to convert those PDF to Word documents or Excel spreadsheets. After all, in order to track your daily progress, you’ll need to work consistently with those sheets.

Resolution: To Learn Something New

When it comes to learning something new, it’s always helpful to generate yourself a good reference or master file you can always turn to. You can create such a resource on any topic you’re learning about using Sonic PDF Creator.

Merging PDFs With Sonic

For instance, one resolution I made this year was to actively keep up with learning to play the violin, which includes developing dexterity in my fingers with scales and arpeggios. Fortunately, I found PDF music sheets of them in every key. Once I downloaded them, I used Sonic to merge PDF files into a single file with other violin sheet music and resources.  I then added bookmarks to keep it organized for easy access.

Resolution:  To Be More Environmentally Aware

Going green doesn’t have to be too hard to keep up. Given that cloud drives, scanners and apps are now pretty much the norm, the way you work needs to adapt anyway. This also applies to anything you’re keeping digital—photo albums, tax records, resumes, essays, research. The list goes on.

Able2Extract Professional can help you start keeping things digital.  Once you can scan in your documents, you never have to print them out again. Able2Extract Professional will give you access to the scanned PDF content instantly, allowing you to reuse the information you need within other applications.

Resolution: To Practice Better Security Habits

This resolution can cover a wide range of more specific resolutions like regularly changing up your passwords to tightening up your Facebook privacy settings.  Sonic PDF Creator offers features that can help get you into security mode with your digital assets, starting with your PDF files.

Securing PDFs With Sonic

With Sonic, you can create a password protected file you can customize with permissions and access.  You can also add encryption, watermarks and stamps to brand the content, preventing it from being copied.

Anyone would agree that creating a resolution is one thing, but realistically and methodically keeping it up is another. So instead of focusing on creating a resolution, focus on ways you can keep the resolution itself with everyday tools you already have. All it takes is a bit of creativity.

Putting The Paperless Office Into Perspective

Creating Paperless Office

Image Source:  Ajaxunion.com

You’re all familiar with the concept of the “paperless office.”  Who isn’t? It’s the ideal workplace where everything is done digitally. No recycling boxes, no shredders. Although we’re a lot closer to that efficient digital office than we were 10 years ago, it’s no surprise that getting to “paper zero” is tough.

True, our technologically oriented world makes it easy to go paperless wherever we can. Free online tools, integrated cloud services and accessible networks make digitizing workflows simple. Even basic things like drafting documents and communicating with colleagues are already being done digitally with MS Word and email.

And we know that the widely used PDF format makes the transition to a paperless office simple. Lawyers, accountants, and business professionals use the format on a daily basis for legal briefs, bank statements, and official contracts, respectively. The format is secured, credible, robust and accessible.  Anyone can easily reuse and edit PDF content by converting it, if needed.

Moreover, paperless offices are appealing because it cuts down on costs.  Fees and budgets associated with printing cartridges, file storage, and shredding services can be eliminated. Our mobile driven world is essentially about being paperless, too. Everything can be done on the go without pen or paper with free or low cost apps.

…But We Still Need Paper!

Yet, there are still some things that will always require paper. As one marketing ad reminds us, there are no substitutes for toilet paper!

In fact, a manufacturer of uncoated free sheet paper in North America, launched an advertizing campaign against the growing trend of digital offices known as PaperBecause. And just as the phrase implies, they provide reasons for using paper.

They point out one obvious fact: we still need paper. It’s true. We’re still attached to it. We still write up phone messages on a sticky note, we still read printed pages, we still use photocopiers.

Finding Common Ground: The Paper-efficient Office

Yet, the humorous videos also make another thing clear. The digital switch is still a work in progress and, fortunately, isn’t about keeping paper around permanently or about abolishing paper altogether. Rather, it’s all about developing a paper-efficient office first.

So before you start getting withdrawal symptoms from going cold turkey on trying to cut your paper usage completely, take your lead from a few of the following tips to make an effective transition:

  • Use tools that can bridge the gap between paper and digital workflows. This includes tools like computer scanners, mobile converter apps, e-faxing services, and document managers.
  • Combine old paper habits with digital ones.  A tip like this is geared towards the small paper habits—taking phone messages and jotting down spontaneous notes. Smartphones these days come with voice recorders and quick note apps. So for every flyleaf you use to note something down, use a digital note the next time. This way you can cut down on half the paper you’re using for notes.
  • Only print up documents when absolutely needed. Ask yourself if your task can be done digitally first.  For example, PDF forms can just as easily be signed and filled in on a computer or converted to editable Word forms. There’s no need to print them up.
  • Work seamlessly with scanned PDF files. As everyone turns paper files into digital ones, you won’t be able to avoid scanned PDF files. For such cases, use a tool like Able2Extract Professional that can make scanned PDF content reusable. To boot, using scanned PDF converter can eliminate the need to manually retype PDF content to edit it.
  • Share documents and ideas with groups digitally.  Many collaboration, white board, document sharing and web clipping tools exist to help you work on content with others. If you can share your ideas and notes without having to make 10 photocopies, go for it!

Taking the first steps by getting some parts of your routine digitized is a great start, but don’t forget to monitor how much paper you’re still using.

Keeping an eye on those levels will help you realize how much paper you can slowly save on without cutting it out completely and all at once.

Any other suggestions you can think of?

4 Digitally Creative Ways To Share Your Thanksgiving Memories

Thanksgiving is coming up fast and you probably have a long to-do list to get your dinner menu just right. In addition, you probably also have to oversee other important things like the guest list,  seating chart,  table setting, and making sure that your guests are well accommodated, among other things. It’s no wonder that holidays are always the most stressful.

However, this holiday in particular is all about slowing things down and taking the time to appreciate the people and things around you.  And no Thanksgiving is complete without being able to share it with family and friends.

Social networks and online tools have made it easy to instantly post photos online and make updates statuses on the spot. But everyone does that. A quick post here and there won’t do your precious memories—and all the hard work and preparation, justice at all.

To help put some life into your Thanksgiving posts and shares, here are four simple ideas that can make your Thanksgiving memories stand out forever.

Create A Thanksgiving PDF Album

Although the first place you’ll post your pictures up is on Facebook, consider creating a PDF album. It will offer you a lot more options, and with Able2Extract PDF Creator you can easily customize it with all of your digitized photos and mementos.

Sonic Thanksgiving PDF Album

For instance, on top of converting your images to PDF, you can merge other pages to it with text that has been put into PDF format. This means you can add a list of what family members were grateful for, extra pages of family quotes or scanned files of the Thanksgiving dinner speech. You even attach files like digitized recipes you used for the dinner. Polish it off afterwards with things like bookmarks and customized headers.  If you collaborate with other members, you can get a scrapbook album full of great Thanksgiving memories.

Generate A GIF Movie Of Your Snapshots

We covered GIF tools last time on our blog and as you saw, GIFs can be a fun way of getting all your photos and video together.  Well, a new trend spotted on popular social network, Reddit, is all about getting full length movies into GIFs.  Why not use that same creative approach and generate a mini GIF movie of your Thanksgiving celebration?

Take play-by-play family snapshots throughout the evening and after selecting the most memorable, upload them to a GIF generator. Then customize and create your GIF to showcase them in one long sequence.  Depending on the images you have, you can come up with some awesome GIFs capturing the entire evening in less than a minute!

Use A Twitter Account & Hashtag

As much as everyone loves getting together for Thanksgiving, it might not always be possible.  But you can still share the holiday with absentee family members on Twitter, the perfect tool for keeping them updated.  For this, consider creating a dedicated account. With a long string of short updates, you’ll have an accurate time capsule of what happened specifically during your Thanksgiving event.

Twitter Thanksgiving Hashtags

Furthermore, you’ll want to use a hashtag. This will allow your family members to zero in on the stream and easily start up a twitter chat. However, be sure to use hashtags that are short and unique like your family’s last name. If not, your stream could get lost among other Thanksgiving tweets.  And don’t forget to be visual! Tweeting back and forth with snapshots and videos will add a personal, warm touch to your stream.

Get Creative With Thanksgiving Videos

Sometimes all you ever want to do during a holiday get together is film the special moments in a meaningful way. Even though you can always find some handy tips on shooting the perfect Vine and Instagram video, take the editing process up a notch before you post and share.

Instead of using standard filters, try mobile apps that can do something fun with your recordings. Try apps like PicPlayPost, which creates a video collage out of your movie clips (see demo example above), or Timelapseit that lets you create a time lapse video out of your movie.  If you film things like the dinner prepping process, the turkey carving ceremony, or family members having fun, these apps can turn them into quick shareable videos for the entire family to enjoy.

The best part of these tips is that you can use these ideas for any holiday occasion. So get creative and make the most out of your Thanksgiving posts.  Try these out and send in your posts to let us know how they turned out!

4 Cool Uses Of Microsoft Office You Probably Didn’t Know About

When you think of Microsoft Office, you probably think of office documents, presentations and spreadsheets. However, you can have a bit of fun with the suite just by knowing how to use the applications and features to their fullest extent.

A few power users out there manipulated their way through the MS Office programs to come up with some extremely creative  content.  Take a look at the following creative, jaw-dropping examples.

Create Art In Microsoft Excel 

Excel Spreadsheet Artwork

You may have heard of this guy on the internet before. Japanese artist, Tatsuo Horiuchi, has been producing art using only Microsoft Excel. It may sound crazy to use MS Excel for generating images let alone creating artwork. But this artist has proven, hands down, that it can be done.

Use Microsoft Word As An Advanced Image Editor

MS Word Graphics Editing

If you think Microsoft Word can only be used for generating documents, you’ll be shocked to see it in action as an advanced graphics editor. This amazing time-lapse video was created and posted by Vaclav Krejci who, according to his YouTube channel bio, aims to “explain graphic design to everyday users using software they are already familiar with.” And he does just that. This video shows how he recreates the iOS 7 home screen using nothing but Microsoft Word, start to finish.

Play A Role Playing Game In Microsoft Excel

Bet you never thought you could turn your data-analyzing, formula-calculating Microsoft Excel spreadsheet into an RPG game. We sure didn’t.  This macro-based RPG was put together in 5 months by Toronto-based chartered accountant, Cary Walkin, whose passion for spreadsheets and video games resulted in Arena.Xlsm.

Excel Spreadsheet RPG Game

Arena.Xlsm comes with character statistics, abilities for ranged attacks, achievements, boss encounters, and magic spells (available at level 10).  This cool game may look slightly different than your average MMPORG, but all the same interactive and essential elements are there.  See how far you can get.

Create Your Own Anime Movie In Microsoft PowerPoint

You’ve probably watched anime before, but we’re guessing that it didn’t require MS PowerPoint.  We caught this awesome example on PowerPoint Heaven, a site created by Shawn Tow that started out as a place to post his own tutorials and work. It is now a popular site for PowerPoint diehards to showcase their innovative uses of the application.

PowerPoint Anime Movie

One user took PowerPoint slides and animation to the next level with Rewrite, an anime drawn and animated in PowerPoint by Han Byul Jang (Zzangdol). We won’t provide you with any spoilers, but download the PowerPoint file to see it in action yourself. You won’t be disappointed.

We never really appreciate the full capabilities of the tools we use on a daily basis. But with a bit of practice and skill you can perhaps work your own magic and come up with a creative way of using MS Office yourself.