The format you need to use for your ebooks is PDF because this is the format which is used everywhere. I can even read PDF documents on my mobile phone, well I could if I had my magnifying glasses with me as the font is just so small.

In one of my other posts, Tools you’ll need to Publish on Bearly Books, I mentioned that the free office suite, OpenOffice, had PDF production built right in.I have decided that you need to see right now exactly what steps you need to take and where to find the important bits.

Once you have edited your book to the point that you are reasonably happy with it and you at least have links in it back to Bearly Books then you can make your PDF.

Go to the File drop-down menu and choose Export as PDF…

As you can see, the line you want is about 1/2 way down the menu list.

Click on that one and you’ll get a pop-up window called Options.

See the image below.

Leave the default settings alone and make sure the settings listed below are checked.

The options you need to have checked on this page are Tagged PDF, Create PDF forms and set the options for that to PDF.  Then make sure Export Bookmarks is set.

At the top of the page you’ll see a tab called Links. 

Click that one and make sure that Open with Internet Browser is checked.  See the image to the left.

The next setting you need to cover is the Security tab.  You do not have to set them the way I do but this is what works for me.

I want my readers to be able to print the documents.  I don’t want them to be able to edit my documents or copy them.  One other important aspect is that I do want the search engines to be able to search my PDFs because that could bring more traffic.

I don’t want my readers to have to use a password to read the books.

OK they are my criteria, you may have different ones so you may have to experiment a bit to make sure that what you want to do actually happens.

This is how I get the results I want.  Click on that Security tab.

You’ll see this page after you check the Restrict permissions checkbox.  On this image you can also see the Encrypt the PDF document checkbox is ticked but I turn that off so the search engines can read the document.

Yes it does reduce your security but it does increase your ability to attract interested visitors.  If you want to set the other restrictions you MUST put a password in these two fields in the pop-up.  Since you will never (well almost never) give this password out to anyone it can be whatever you like.  You don’t even have to remember it yourself so don’t.

Click the OK button and you’ll get this view of the security page.

As you can see, I set printing to High resolution and everything else to Not permitted.

And now there is only one more setting to be bothered with.

Yep, Export your file to PDF.  You’ll be asked what you want to call it and where you want the file to be saved, I always put it in with the original document and I have them in their own folder which is named the same.

Just seems logical to me but you may have a different logic and that’s fine too.

Now you really must check your PDF.  Open your new document and check that your links all open in the internet browser. 

Make sure everything looks good and if it is all good you can take the next steps toward putting it in the Catalog here at Bearly Books.

Here’s the link to the book I created for this tutorial. Vegetarian Lifestyle.

Now I need some feedback from you.  Has this helped you?  Do you need more clarification on any part of this?  Would you like more detailed information, in this format about other parts of Bearly Books and self publishing?  Which bits do you want first?

Your turn, tell me what you want or need.