The Printing Press of the Future is Free
By: Mark Joyner
In The Rise of the Author I talked about how technology is changing our lives right before our very eyes - and how the nature of the publishing industry is changing.
The printing press of the future is the computer monitor.
And delivery method of choice seems more and more to be the Adobe PDF file.
Why not just deliver your content via HTML?
Two reasons: portability and perception.
HTML will not render or print consistently across platforms, as much as we'd love it to. PDF will.
And the perception of information delivered via PDF is one of higher value. "Oh, this is a special file format. It's a book." Not "just a web page."
You could go purchase Adobe Acrobat for $300 and up (depending on the version), or ...
You can get Primo PDF for free. Yes, it doesn't have all of the bells and whistles of Acrobat or other non-free PDF converters, but do you really need them?
Suggested Resources: 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit for limitless ways to turn PDF files into cash flow.
Comments
Mark Joyner you're a maniac! A Marketing Madman...And I'm Impressed! I welcome words of wisdom anytime. I'm a real estate investor, but recognize opportunity in many endeavors. Feel free to let the knowledge flow!
The one important thing that PrimoPDF doesn't do is preserve links to external URLs. For example, if you have a Word document that contains hyperlinks and you convert it to a PDF with PrimoPDF, the links show up as blue underlined text, but they are no longer active hyperlinks. That's a major drawback when publishing ebooks, IMO. The good news is that Adobe Acrobat is available on eBay for less than 100 bucks. That's where I got mine.
Note from MJ: great info!
If you use OpenOffice writer - www.openoffice.org, and use the File, Export as PDF option, then all links are preserved in the PDF document produced.
Open source, free, and very powerful.
Hey Mark,
You can also download http://openoffice.org - free
and write and edit like in everyother editor.. then just click the PDF icon and instantly turn that into PDF... with clickable urls and all that jazz... it works great for me.
Acrobat also has the very interesting feature of allowing you to embed (or create a link to streaming) video and audio files.
I recommend the book "Dynamic Media" by Bob Connolly. It comes with a CD-rom of the entire book in a PDF file which contains several videos. A perfect demonstration of the potential of PDF.
'neevia converter' converts word docs in to txt with hyperlinks in tact you don't even see any dotted borders over the links. You can convert it on their site or have the pdf emailed to you.
Great post Mark!
1) My guess is that most of us (at least I do) still prefer organizing thoughts and reading on print. However, for the generation which grew up being used to carrying out conversations on tiny sms phone screens, reading on screens is no brainer.
2) In addition to Open Office, MS Office also now has similar link preservation features during pdf conversion.
3) HTML has the advantage of being light and fast rendering (especially on handhelds) vs. pdf. With latest versions of browsers (Firefox, IE8, and Safari) all following web standards, the problem of non-standardized rendering and print output will go away.
You can also use the website, www.zamzar.com, as a web-based tool to convert any file to any format especially if you want to convert a Word document to PDF. Very useful and clever. Hope this helps.
Instead of donwloading the PrimoPDF, the PDF Online (www.pdfonline.com) also allow you to convert files from most of the widely used files format. Especially commendable is that it allow more than 20,000 files conversion a day! Quick and easy, accesible anywhere anytime and especially useful if you are using an office computer where downloading of softwares to the desktop is deemed as malicious.
Rgds.
" Mark " I agree with your idea, Yes Open office has it. But yours is a better idea. stick with it
I use the EasyPDF Printer Driver from BCL Technologies. I bought mine about three years ago and it was $14.95, which is peanuts for what I've got from it. A quick visit to the website tells me it still is $14.95.
Mark:
How are you? Been trying to reach you via private email about another subject (update on the status of our bestseller working relationship ever since i won the video contest).
Anyway, I wanted to say that I tried the trial version of the EasyPDF Printer from BCL Technologies and loved it. I was able to preserve the hyperlinks, a vital part of the creation of my first e-book (which I'm planning to do prior to the hardcover printing).
I haven't tried inserting images just yet but will see how that works.
Thanks.
I agree that PDF files are the most widely accepted and professionally valued. My question is,
How does one protect their literary property from being pinched when sending out a PDF file? E-books have literary property protection built into the software but many customers are leery and skeptical of a .exe file even from a reputable company. Do you have any suggestions on this?
Thank you again Mark for all your help and information and support!
P.S.
I just tried inserting an image in my MS Word document and then converted to PDF using the EasyPDF Printer (trial version) and even the images were preserved!
I ended up buying a license for $14.95. Well worth it, in my opinion!
I'd just join the gang with my two cents...
...or you could get OpenOffice.org and as you write your document in an open source format (the one you will be able to read your content from even 10 years or more from today), and when you're done, just press one button and voila - you've got a professional PDF document - for free!
If you wish to play then choose "File" > "Export as PDF" and you've got even more options for how you want your PDF document to be...
I too use EasyPDF printer and find it works really well - will look into the openoffice to compare and keep you posted!
Thanks for all your ideas Mark!
Aditionally, newest version of OpenOffice.org allows you to save in a PDF/A format, a file format for long term preservation.
From Wikipedia: "PDF/A is in fact a subset of PDF, leaving out PDF features not suited to long-term archiving."
From a business stand point, this looks very good: it simply means your electronical products will have a longer life span - and you won't have to worry your customers who got the file X years ago won't be able to access it now or in future...
@Terrie:
>"How does one protect their literary property from being pinched when sending out a PDF file? "
OpenOffice.org has the feature of protecting your PDF documents if you were thinking about protection as in copy, print protection etc. You can also protect it from opening without a password.
>"many customers are leery and skeptical of a .exe file even from a reputable company."
Not only that, but it's not (exe file) cross-platform... Solution is PDF.
Note to Mac users who may not be aware of it: In OS X, you can create a PDF from any application you can print out of by clicking and holding the "PDF" button at the bottom of the Print dialog and choosing "Save as PDF..."