CreateSpace books - Amazon

General comments and questions. Technical support.
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Sarah
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 5:41 pm

CreateSpace books - Amazon

Post by Sarah »

Has anybody attempted to use Atlantis to produce a book for Amazon to be printed through CreateSpace? If so, what worked well, and what pitfalls needed to be avoided?

I know that CreateSpace needs a PDF, and I'd probably use either CutePDF or NitroPDF to create it from the Atlantis document (I'm open to other suggestions). I'm a little worried that it won't be the correct type of PDF -- there are various types, and I think CreateSpace has a preference.

Ideally the project would have an index. Last I heard, that isn't something Atlantis can do. Are there complimentary programs that could help with that? Or just plow through and do it by hand?
Sarah
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 5:41 pm

Follow up

Post by Sarah »

I forgot to say that the book may be 6 x 9, rather than 5 1/2 x 8 1/2. I don't see that as a default setting for a page size in Atlantis, though. Does anyone have any experience with whether creating a custom size page causes any trouble in making PDFs, etc.?
Robert
Posts: 1900
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2003 8:27 pm

Post by Robert »

Hi Sarah,
As you noticed, Atlantis cannot (yet) create an index for you. You’ll have to do it by hand.

Natively, Atlantis won’t save files to the PDF format either. However, you can use the so-called “PDF printers” from Atlantis if you install applications like CutePDF or NitroPDF. doPDF is good too. It is supposed to preserve hyperlinks from the source document.
This said, you might be better off using any of the following online converters. These will preserve the various hyperlinks present in the source document:
Online PDF-Converter
PDF Converter
Neevia Document Converter
Zamzar

If you need a 6 x 9 page size for your source document, this can be easily set in Atlantis. You only have to open the “File | Page settings…” dialog, and type in the desired values for the page width and height on the “Page Format” tab.

Atlantis has nothing to do with CreateSpace directly. You’ll find explanations about the CreateSpace requirements on the following pages:
CreateSpace Community
Formatting Your Files
A Step-By-Step Guide to Formatting Your Book's Interior
Print & eBook Design Differences
Creating a PDF for Print

HTH.
Cheers,
Robert
franklinreid
Posts: 27
Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2011 1:19 pm

Publishing on CreateSpace

Post by franklinreid »

Robert,
I have published seven 6x9 books on Amazon and for four of them I used Atlantis to do the work. Like Sarah said, I use DoPDF as my "pdf printer" program. I just click on the printer icon and change the default printer to DoPDF and then make sure it is saved in the place you want it and it produces a nice PDF of my books. CreateSpace has no trouble with them, only alerting me if some of my pictures are less pixels than they like. The last three I used their cover createor and it has worked well for me. I have used this program for several years with other word processors.

DoPDF is free and can be downloaded to your computer as an installed "printer" so when you go to look at the devices you will see it there.
Robert
Posts: 1900
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2003 8:27 pm

Post by Robert »

Most, if not all, so-called “PDF printers” fail to save at least some of the hyperlinks that can be found in source documents (navigational, TOC, footnote, endnote hyperlinks; Web or email URLs, etc.).
On the other hand, 7-PDF Maker saves all hyperlinks to PDF. It is a free desktop application (offline converter).
HTH.
Cheers,
Robert
Shan
Posts: 57
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 9:44 am

Extra prog to do an Index?

Post by Shan »

Can anyone suggest a program to create an Index?

I'm doing a PhD with around 200 pages, plus another 30 or so of appendices prob 250 by the time it's done.
Will also be publishing as book on Createspace.
No way can I do an accurate Index by hand on that quantity. (At the moment it's separate chapter docs not sure about Atlantis and large documents.)

I don't mind going through an auto Index editing it, like editing a scan.

I tried some searches but the assumption is I'm using MSWord so advice is based on that.
Robert
Posts: 1900
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2003 8:27 pm

Post by Robert »

Atlantis does not support Indexes yet.
Shan
Posts: 57
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 9:44 am

Post by Shan »

Robert wrote:Atlantis does not support Indexes yet.
Yes thank you. That is why I asked if anyone knows a program that will do an Index for me on a large project.
Franklinr
Posts: 47
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2015 1:06 pm

Program to create Index

Post by Franklinr »

I have used Index Generator for five non-fiction books and it works well. When finished I save the file as an RTF file and it easily pastes into the book. The work is to actually select all the words needed for the index, which only you can do. It usually takes me a couple of days to create the index.
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