Ebooks -- Letting Out Your "Inner Author"

I like ebooks. I like writing ebooks. It’s a great way to let people know who you are, and what you’re doing. If you can create a website, you can create an ebook. In fact, they can be the same thing.

I like to use Front Page 2000 to create ebooks. Of course, you can use any HTML editor. Then I use E-ditor-Pro to compile ebooks into an EXE file.

E-ditor Pro is a great little program. It’s so easy to make ebooks. In fact, you can get carried away and end up filling up all the space on your site with ebooks. I like it because it creates a really nice, polished ebook. There are plenty of way to make your ebooks for free -- I will tell you what they are -- below.

Some ebooks operate like a collection of webpages, but instead of being published to the Internet, you compile an .EXE file out of them. Naturally, if you do that, the browser itself must become a part of the ebook. That’s why E-ditor Pro ebooks always take up at least 300K as a minimum because the 300K browser must be included. However, since HTML pages tend to be smallish, you can get a lot of pages in, before you reach 400K.

Acrobat Reader

Another way to create an ebook is to use the .PDF format of Acrobat. Since Acrobat Reader has become a standard, anyone can easily download a free copy of the Acrobat Reader software, and millions of people already have. Whether or not PDF results in a smaller filesize than an EXE file is dependent upon how you set things up, and what size graphics files you use.

The only real down-side of creating PDF files is that the purchased Acrobat Reader program costs $295. Personally, I think it’s more than worth it. There are just so many great features and things you can do with it. (and yes – there are free program that can create PDF files that I will tell you about.)

Let’s look at how to create an ebook. First, you assemble a number of pages in Front Page. (I sometimes use Microsoft Word in one long file, and then separate it into individual web pages by subject.) You link all the pages together with a table of bodytexts and also with buttons. Then you use E-ditor Pro (or another program) to compile it into an ebook.

One significant difference in ebook compilers (from publishing to the web) is that all your HTML pages must be in the same folder. You only use one root folder – all your pages are in it. To operate the compiler is simplicity itself. It just asks you what folder the pages are in, and which is the start page. That way, it doesn’t have to "resolve" any links because they’re already all pointing properly within the one folder.

How Do You Make A PDF File?

You could always purchase Acrobat Reader from Adobe. It's pricey, but has lots and lots of features and extras. You use whatever word-processing or desktop-publishing software that you like, and then you "print" to a PDF device, thus creating the PDF book on your hard disk. You can even create PDF books from websites by using the WebCapture feature of Acrobat Reader.

What if you don’t want to spend $295? OK. Get a copy of Acrobat Distiller. It’s much cheaper, but it has one (and only one) function – which is to take a PostScript file and convert it into a PDF document. (That means you can install practically any PostScript printer driver you like, as long as you put the results on your hard disk. Then the Acrobat Distiller will convert that into a PDF document.)

You say you want to find a free way to create PDF documents? Yes, it can be done. It requires some extra steps (and quite a bit of fudging) but it is possible. Here’s a few sources for you:

PDF Creation Sites and Software

www.easysw.com/htmldoc      HTMLDOC    (Free software)

www.ps2pdf.com   Postscript to PDF Converter
(a Web-based free service)

https://createpdf.adobe.com    Create PDF's Online
($9.95 a month web service)

www.daneprairie.com      Win2PDF  
(free for noncommercial use, $35 otherwise)

www.jwwalker.com/pages/pdf.html     PrintToPDF
($20 Shareware)

Help Files

Tip: how about creating a HELP file to serve as your ebook offering? Help file creation software may be found at:

Samaritan

Ebook Compilers

Oh yeah – you wanted some ebook compilers that use HTML (webpages) as input, and create an ebook as output. OK, here’s a bunch:

E-ditor Pro (seems to no longer offer a website)

www.ebookgold.com    EbookGold.Com

www.ebookcompiler.com/download.html     Ebook Compiler

www.bersoft.com       HyperMaker and WebPacker

www.jansfreeware.com/jftools.htm      SbookBuilder   (Free)