Best tool for creating pdf's?

BeTePoK · 10-05-2009, 02:31 PM

Just wondering which is the best tool to create your own pdf e-books from *.doc, *.txt or *.rtf? One important note: it must support cyrillic (i.e. Russian language).
Any help will be appreciated!

orion2001 · 10-05-2009, 05:57 PM

Hi there,

I just started experimenting with making PDF ebooks using Word 2007 (any wordprocessor would do to be honest) and Acrobat Pro to generate the PDFs. Again, any free PDF software will also do just fine. I think the key is to have the page size match your reader. Looking at Jellby's excellent PDF ebooks, I've learnt that 3.54 inches by 4.72 inches works really well for a page size (with no margins). Once you have the WORD document formatted exactly the way you want, you can then just convert to PDF (make sure that the page size is retained).

The neat thing with PDFs is that all the formatting will be exactly as in your Word file so you do a lot of fancy things like Drop caps, etc and have it show up in your PDF. I also find that with a properly formatted PDF for the PRS-505, the page turns are almost as fast as LRF files.

The advantages are that the formatting looks better (if you put in a bit of work in your original Word file) and you can also get true full page justification with hyphenation (which looks far better than the LRF justification). The flip size ofcourse is that changing the font size makes things look terrible so you have to be content with reading the whole book in one font size (not an issue for me).

Solitaire1 · 11-24-2009, 03:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BeTePoK

Just wondering which is the best tool to create your own pdf e-books from *.doc, *.txt or *.rtf? One important note: it must support cyrillic (i.e. Russian language).
Any help will be appreciated!

Although I'm late to the discussion, I'll try and help. I use StarOffice 8.0 (SO) to make my PDFs. SO is basically an office suite like Microsoft Office and features a word processor (Writer), a spreadsheet (Calc), a presentation program (Impress), and a drawing program (Draw). Although it doesn't feature a database, Calc can provide many database functions. I checked SO and it does provide support for the cyrillic language (it is listed as an available language). BTW, OpenOffice.org is a free program that is basically an open source version of SO and should work the same.

With SO, you have everything you need to make PDF ebooks. Writer is able to open all of the formats that you listed. It can also open up HTML files and more than 100 other formats, including many old word processing formats (such as Wordstar 3.3). It allows you to export your documents as PDF files.

When I make a PDF ebook what I normally do is open up the file, save it as an OpenDocument Text (ODT) file (the default format for SO8), format the ODT file for my ereader, and then export it to PDF. When I'm editing the ebook, if I set the view to "Print Layout" my editing screen will match the screen of my ebook reader so I can see exactly what my ebook will look like on my reader.

SO makes it extremely easy to make PDF ebooks. I can take a basic text file and have it ready for my reader in about 2 minutes (set the page size, set the font and line spacing for the text, and then export it to PDF).

frabjous · 11-26-2009, 06:13 PM

I use PDFLaTeX whenever I can-- in order to get professional hinting, kerning, hyphenation, ligatures, and general combination of ease of use and typographic power.

Sweetpea · 11-27-2009, 04:28 AM

Problem with latex is that you must learn a mark-up language...

I've played with latex ages ago, what I remember is that it was fairly hard to do correctly... (it might have changed though!)

frabjous · 11-27-2009, 09:00 AM

There's a fairly steep learning curve at first. But it's worth it. Check out the beauty of TeX or the TeX showcase.

You can use its typography without the mark-up language with LyX, however.

DaleDe · 12-03-2009, 01:05 PM

I use Framemaker from Adobe. It can create tagged PDF files with all the trimmings done right. It uses Adobe Distiller to do the job.

NickW · 01-08-2010, 06:34 PM

I create my PDFs with the free software available here.

Pdf995, once installed, appears in your word processors as a virtual printer: print your txt, rtf, doc, jpeg or whatever to a new PDF, and you can select the "paper size" as with hardcopy printing.

PdfEdit995, which opens separately, allows adding of tags, properties and bookmarks to the most recent PDF created. It's far from perfect, and any serious mistake will require printing the file again - but it works.

This software is damn good, considering that it's completely free!

10-05-2009, 02:31 PM	#1
BeTePoK Guru Posts: 740 Karma: 12616666 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Republic of Belarus Device: Sony PRS-505	Best tool for creating pdf's? Just wondering which is the best tool to create your own pdf e-books from .doc, .txt or *.rtf? One important note: it must support cyrillic (i.e. Russian language). Any help will be appreciated!

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10-05-2009, 05:57 PM	#2
orion2001 Groupie Posts: 162 Karma: 24658 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: PRS-505	Hi there, I just started experimenting with making PDF ebooks using Word 2007 (any wordprocessor would do to be honest) and Acrobat Pro to generate the PDFs. Again, any free PDF software will also do just fine. I think the key is to have the page size match your reader. Looking at Jellby's excellent PDF ebooks, I've learnt that 3.54 inches by 4.72 inches works really well for a page size (with no margins). Once you have the WORD document formatted exactly the way you want, you can then just convert to PDF (make sure that the page size is retained). The neat thing with PDFs is that all the formatting will be exactly as in your Word file so you do a lot of fancy things like Drop caps, etc and have it show up in your PDF. I also find that with a properly formatted PDF for the PRS-505, the page turns are almost as fast as LRF files. The advantages are that the formatting looks better (if you put in a bit of work in your original Word file) and you can also get true full page justification with hyphenation (which looks far better than the LRF justification). The flip size ofcourse is that changing the font size makes things look terrible so you have to be content with reading the whole book in one font size (not an issue for me).

11-26-2009, 06:13 PM	#4
frabjous Wizard Posts: 1,213 Karma: 12890 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Amherst, Massachusetts, USA Device: Sony PRS-505	I use PDFLaTeX whenever I can-- in order to get professional hinting, kerning, hyphenation, ligatures, and general combination of ease of use and typographic power.

11-27-2009, 04:28 AM	#5
Sweetpea Grand Sorcerer Posts: 9,707 Karma: 32763414 Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Krewerd Device: Pocketbook Inkpad 4 Color; Samsung Galaxy Tab S6	Problem with latex is that you must learn a mark-up language... I've played with latex ages ago, what I remember is that it was fairly hard to do correctly... (it might have changed though!)

11-27-2009, 09:00 AM	#6
frabjous Wizard Posts: 1,213 Karma: 12890 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Amherst, Massachusetts, USA Device: Sony PRS-505	There's a fairly steep learning curve at first. But it's worth it. Check out the beauty of TeX or the TeX showcase. You can use its typography without the mark-up language with LyX, however.

12-03-2009, 01:05 PM	#7
DaleDe Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,470 Karma: 13095790 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Grass Valley, CA Device: EB 1150, EZ Reader, Literati, iPad 2 & Air 2, iPhone 7	I use Framemaker from Adobe. It can create tagged PDF files with all the trimmings done right. It uses Adobe Distiller to do the job.

01-08-2010, 06:34 PM	#8
NickW Member Posts: 19 Karma: 366 Join Date: Jun 2009 Device: Android	I create my PDFs with the free software available here. Pdf995, once installed, appears in your word processors as a virtual printer: print your txt, rtf, doc, jpeg or whatever to a new PDF, and you can select the "paper size" as with hardcopy printing. PdfEdit995, which opens separately, allows adding of tags, properties and bookmarks to the most recent PDF created. It's far from perfect, and any serious mistake will require printing the file again - but it works. This software is damn good, considering that it's completely free!

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