[M T McGuire]

Hello there,

I apologise if this is the wrong place to ask this question... but... I'm hoping to pick yer brains! I've been publishing short stories on Smashwords and am on the brink of publishing a novel.

So far, I've stuck things into the Smashwords meatgrinder with no real way of seeing what comes out the other side BUT, while that's fine for free e-shorts I feel guilty charging people to download something I haven't even (can't even) check before publication. I think it might be better if I could find a programme which would convert say, a fully formatted word file, on my own computer... Failing that, even a reader which would allow me to look at what Smashwords gives me in say... six most used formats (I was thinking LRF, Ebup, Mobi, Pdf, RTF and possibly the Palm thing although I might be able to do that with my iPAQ no?).

There is a useful wiki page about these things but I'm a bit of a techno-spanner and so most of the helpful details to assist my choice are passing several miles over my head.

What I really need is something that will open my rtf or word file, save it in the format of my choice and then let me preview it and make any changes if required. I won't be applying any drm because drm is pants and I believe this might make things a bit more straightforward. Ideally it would be free software... or VERY cheap.

Um... anyone have any ideas?

Cheers

M T M