Okay hang onto your hair, no need to start pulling at what might be left of the grey, blonde, red, hair that you might have left at this point. Self publishing in general can really cause an Author to go out and buy some wigs so you have plenty of spare hairs to pull out. This to me is one of the easier tasks that I have to do in order to get my books ready for Createspace. I know there is a lot of screen shots, and most of you won't need these, but there are authors out there that are still learning.
I know that not everyone uses pdf files, but I've always turned my word files into a PDF file for Createspace so lets get started.
Step 1
I have an older version of word so it didn't have a PDF converter installed so I found one and installed it. I use this one here it's called dopdf. The link I give you is to CNET one of my favorite places to find downloads.
Once you are at the page you will find this below. Click on the big green 'download now cnet secure download,' button and then wait.
After a few seconds you will see this next box pop up. Don't be tricked by all the cute boxes that say click here to download, this or that. Just hold your fingers still until you see this little box pop up and then click save file. This is what you will see.
STEP 3
Once you do that you will go to your desk top and look for the file and open it. It will look like this.
From here you do the usual install and watch for a little box that says it's going to install the add on 'Microsoft Office.' You don't want to let any of those pesky add-ons get on your computer so un-check the box. Here is an image so you'll know where the little box is. It's right in the middle of the window. Once you have unchecked the box, you just click 'install now' and follow the instructions. I didn't find anything else on my computer but always watch for those sneaky add-on's .
Step 5
It will ask you do you want to launch and open, you can do this and it will give you a few images to know what to look for. Next you will open your M word document that you want to turn into a PDF file.
Step 6
Now you will create a file on your desk top where you want your new PDF file to land. I created a file and you can see it below. If you don't do this your PDF file will be lost. You can't put it on the desk top. I don't know why, but every time you do it just goes into the world of missing files. So take a moment and make a file for your PDF to land in. Here is mine.
Now that you have your empty file, or you have a file in mind where you're going to put your PDF file go to the Print area on your tool bar menu in Word, and act as if you are going to print your book. You click on print and using the drop down menu you go until you find Dopdf 8. Here is a image so you can know what to look for. You can also see how I have mine set I want it to print ALL, 1 copy, etc etc. Then you click print and another screen will appear.
Step 8
From here you click on the BROWSE button and pick where you want your file to go. As I said you must chose a file for your PDF to go into. I chose my little empty PDF File. As you can see
I'm ready to hit save. After you hit save you will be brought back to your Print box click okay and if you have OPEN FILE checked it should open when it's done. It normally takes only a few minutes to save.
When you do this your PDF file should opens and then you can upload your it to Createspace. I hope this helps if you have any questions feel free to comment. When you do this a couple of times it becomes a very easy process.
I hope this helps
Samantha
