Create and publish proper PDFs for free

The PDF format, if you don't know, is very popular for distributing ebooks. Unlike traditional ebooks, PDFs can be opened on both PCs and Macs using Adobe's free Acrobat Reader. They're also easy to print.

Creating PDFs for free is pretty easy - has been for a long time. All the free PDF printers I've tried, however, had one problem in common: they couldn't create PDFs with active hyperlinks.

Print a document with hyperlinks to PDF format with one of these, and none of the links in your PDF is clickable. Whoops! Having live hyperlinks in an ebook is crucial.

Here's the solution: Using the excellent free OpenOffice.org Writer, you can now publish your document to PDF straight from this word processor, with all hyperlinks active and clickable, ready to send your readers to whatever profit making locations you want them to go.

Here's how to get it going:

1. Download the OpenOffice suite from www.openoffice.org

2. Double-click the installation file to start the installation - if you already have software like Microsoft Office on your computer, you may want to only install the Writer and not the rest of the package, so check the installation options carefully.

3. Open the OpenOffice.org Writer. It can open MS Word documents, so if you already have ebook projects typed up in Word, not a problem. Alternatively, create your ebook content in the Writer.

4. When you're ready to publish, open the File menu and choose "Export To PDF".

5. Choose a location, and you'll get prompted for some PDF options. Under the Images options I like to set JPEG compression to 90% and Image Resolution to 150DPI. This way your images in the PDF still looks good, but the PDF isn't excessively large.

Video on this and one or two simple things you can do to make your PDF look nice coming later this week!

Nic