CHOOSING A FORMAT



This is a particularly important step. And the reason is because you want to make your new niche product available to as many people as humanly possible. Statistically, most internet users are running on a Windows Operating System format. And that means statistically, most internet users can benefit from executable formatted products, or those that come in the ever popular .exe file extension.

Now, that's all fine and dandy, but if you decide to only use the .exe format, you're leaving out a good chunk of potential customers that run on non-Microsoft operating systems, such as Macintosh or Red Hat. But luckily, there is a solution to offer your niche product to almost every potential customer, no matter which operating system they run on.

And that is by using.....

The Portable Document File, or PDF, made possible by Adobe. The genius of this particular file format for information products is that because the .PDF files run on an independent program that can be utilized from any operating system, it then makes the document files platform independent themselves so long as the customer has the program to run the .PDF files from. And this gets even better…Adobe Reader is completely, 100% free for anyone to download. Plus, those wanting, or needing Adobe Reader software have to download it directly from Adobe's website.

So the obvious choice would be to go with the .PDF file format, right? WRONG.

Even though using the .PDF format opens your product up to the maximum amount of customers you could possibly get, it is limited in terms of what can be done with it as far as running HTML type scripts and fill-able forms. Executable formatted products can do those things as they are essentially HTML pages pasted together with a sort of 'virtual glue' when using an .exe compiler.

Depending on what it is you wish to accomplish with your product will determine what type of file format you will chose for your product. Some authors choose just one. Others choose both. The question you need to ask yourself is "What Do I Want My Product to Do?" If you simply want to give good, quality information to your customers while getting your business noticed and reach the maximum amount of customers possible, then the PDF format would be best for you. But, if you want to use specific scripts to tell the current date, or to use automatic update functions for your product, or to add your customers to a product update mailing list, then you would want to use the EXE format.

At this point, you have probably already reached your decision on which format you will use. Now all you need are the tools. I'm not going to list every available tool here, because that's really not necessary. You don't need all the tools listed; you just need the best tools listed. And that's what I'm going to give you - a list of the best. And a list of tools I personally have, and still use.

-- .EXE COMPILER TOOL --

http://www.webadvertisingsecrets.com/activ.htm

This is really the only .exe tool you need. The cost is a miniscule $29.95 when compared with other available tools. I have used other .exe compilers before, and ran into problems with them, but this was the best deal and value for my money. I encourage you, if you have not yet purchased an .exe compiler, or even if you have, at least give Activ Ebook Compiler a try. You won't be disappointed with its performance or features. You can use it to create rebrandible products, simple ebooks, password protected ebooks, and more. You also receive free upgrades when they are made available too in case something ever needs to be fixed, as with the Windows XP SP2 .exe ebook disaster that happened recently. Activ has no problems with this error. It's simply is the best exe. compiler for the price and quality.

-- .PDF COMPILER TOOL

http://www.openoffice.org

See, this program is absolutely fantastic. And I stand by it 100%. Plus it's totally free too.

To use it as a PDF compiler, all you need to do is open it up by creating a New Document. Then when you finish writing up and formatting your original product as far as font settings, line spacing, adding images, and things of this nature are concerned, all you need to do is hit the Export as PDF button and ZAP! Your document has been exported in .PDF form. Easy as 1-2-3.

Now normally, the links inside the document won't be clickable when you open up the finished PDF file in Adobe Reader. But, there is a way to work around this. Two ways actually. The first, and easiest, is to simply add the entire link within the document so that your readers can copy and paste them themselves to their own browsers.

The second and a bit more complicated way is to download a PDF editing program. One free option can be found at: http://www.pdfedit995.com . However, if you are going to use this option, you'll also need to download the PDF995 program at http://www.pdf995.com - that works like an additional printer and creates the PDF files this way. Sounds complicated, but it's not really. All the information you could ever need about using the PDF995 line of software can be found right at their website.

COMPILING WITH YOUR CHOSEN FORMAT

I won't be going into specific details about how to compile using the products I mentioned above. Instead, I'd rather just give you the already created and written information about using the products as they are most likely much better than what I could have written up for you.

HOW TO USE ACTIV EBOOK COMPILER

http://www.webadvertisingsecrets.com/active.exe

TUTORIALS FOR OPENOFFICE.ORG

http://www.tutorialsforopenoffice.org

LEARN OPENOFFICE.ORG VIDEO TUTORIALS

http://www.learnopenoffice.org

You have just completed a major step in the creation of your new information product.

Copyright © 2005 Ronald Gibson