How to Protect PDF Today Blog

Do you consider your computer one of your important investments? Does your job require a computer? Or is your job dependent on a computer system, so you can easily transact with clients and employees? If you answer yes to all these, then you have to give your computer the utmost care, maintenance and above all, security so you can enjoy using it to your advantage.

With the continuous rise of the number of people taking advantage of the power of the Internet, online threats also increase, and so is the risk of getting your computer infected. That is why it is important that you take adequate measures to prevent damage to your computer. One of these measures is to install computer security software.

Your computer should have security software. These include firewall, spyware scanning software and antivirus software.

Firewall is the software used to protect your computer from hackers and internal “malware” that is trying to “phone home.” Malware refers to the malicious codes that float around to harm your computer. With a firewall, all incoming traffic to your computer will be scanned for any irregularities, as well as all outgoing traffic. But when you buy a firewall, make sure to choose one that is easy to use.

Spyware scanning software is another type of software available. This is used to detect certain websites that run programs in the background of your computer, at the same time, gather information from it. Spyware can slow down your computer, and might have to be removed. There are two popular options for this type of software — the Spy Sweeper and Adware.

Last but not the least is the antivirus software. This software scans the files on your computer and checks them for attributes that are in viruses or those that are linked with viruses. Two main companies offer this type of software: Norton and McAfee.

These are the different computer security software that you can install to better protect your computer. Whatever type you wish to have for your computer, make sure that you choose the one that works best with your computer’s configurations.

Everyone creating an eBook would stumble upon the choice on whether to publish your eBook as a PDF or EXE. The differences between the two can be more than just the file extensions. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. So when should you select a specific format?

When you make a search for eBook creation software, you would generally find EXE eBook creation software on the top. Why is this so? Why not PDF? PDF has been on the market for a long time. But eBook creation was not just one thing it is used for. PDF is used by the Goverment and for many important document and manuscripts. PDF’s features made many writers publish in that format.

EXE eBooks can be created using many eBook Creation software. These are available in various ranges, from $19 to $200. Many of them come with a brander, which enables your readers to brand your ebook to their name. The interface provided by the EXE eBooks look sleek. People find it easier to design web-page like eBook design and interactivity in HTML rather than a Word Processor.

There is a great misconception in the market that PDFs are very costly to create. We hear of the fact that Adobe’s PDF creation tools are very costly, and hence is PDF creation. But we shouldn’t ignore all the other alternatives available. Today, PDF creation products which provide similar features, are available for free. Most of the Word Processors have PDF exporting features incorporated in them.

Another misconception is that eBooks published in EXE format look more professional than PDF eBooks. This is certainly wrong. Nowadays, its the content that matters the most. PDFs looks and feels like real paper. A document can be made a lot more professional in a Word Processor using the various formatting tools available.

There was one problem with PDF though. It could not be as easily branded as EXE eBooks, which already came with a brander. But many solutions for rebranding PDFs have emerged in the market.

EXE eBooks can look difference in different computers, especially if people use various resolutions. This can be evident by seeing many Websites that look difference when seen in difference resolutions. PDFs look the same in all the computers, and one can easily print them.

My personal suggestion would be to go with PDF eBooks. They too have various security options. A quick Google search can lead you to many free PDF creation tools. PDFs can be read in Mac or in any Operating System where Adobe Reader or equivalent is installed. This also includes Operating Systems like Linux.

There is a possibility of EXE files getting corrupted or infected with virus. If a person having his PC infected by a virus downloads your eBook and passes it to his friends, there is a great chance that he is passing away an infected eBook. EXE eBooks carry an overhead. The “reader” part of an EXE eBook is around 200 to 300 Kb. Your content is compressed and added to it, which results in eBooks more than 300kb.

But if you don’t want to speed huge amount of money on PDF branders and want to start a Viral Marketing campaign, i would certainly go with an EXE eBook compiler. The choice is yours.

PDF documents are the most popular file format in the world due to their reliability, cross-platform support and copyright protection. Of course, we wouldn’t have PDF files if we didn’t have PDF file creators, whether at home or in the office, PDF creators are an essential tool on any PC.

There are dozens of software packages out there that can create PDF files for you with a single click. Generally this kind of software is not free, but luckily it is not expensive either. The prices vary from $29.95 to over $200 depending on the license and features. Although in reality most of you won’t have to spend more than $29.95 for this kind of software.

Create PDF Files in 3 Easy Steps:

When you have a PDF File creator installed on your machine, the most common way to create PDFs is to open any file you wish to have converted, go to File menu and select print. This may sound odd, but in fact most PDF creators work like this:

1. Go to File –> Print in any program (Word, Excel, Illustrator, Photoshop etc)

2. Select the PDF Creating Software as the printer (Instead of say, Epson Stylus)

3. Save the PDF file that has been created for you under any name you choose.

It really is that simple, although not all PDF file creators work in this way, the more popular ones do. If you’re looking for more advanced features, they are also available for you as most PDF creators allow you to combine different formats into one PDF file. For instance, you can put a Word file and a .jpg file into the same PDF! On top of this, if security is what you’re after, most PDF creators allow you to encrypt and password protect your PDF’s!

Publishing any documents into the PDF format used to be an expensive and complicated procedure, with only Adobe’s Acrobat software to do it with. However nowadays the ebook author has many options available to them, and converting their final Word (or other format document) just became a breeze! I’m going to run you through three of these, and most are available – for free!

OpenOffice

The full free Office Suite OpenOffice, has within its Writer software, a PDF conversion function. OpenOffice Writer can open your Microsoft Word documents also. So if you’ve prepared everything in MS Word, simply open it in Writer, check formatting etc, then convert!

1. Download Open Office from OpenOffice.org (while you’re at it, you might want to pick up the Writers Tools extension pack available for free also – but you don’t need it for PDF conversion).

2. Either write your Ebook in ooWriter, or in Microsoft Office’s Word application (and open the final version into ooWriter)

3. If opening a word document into ooWriter, you may need to look at the extension of this file. If you have the most current version of Word (Word 97-2003) it will normally be saving the file with a four-character extension (normally docx) which ooWriter doesn’t currently like. Instead, use the Office Button / Save As, and save as the default Word format, ensuring that the extension is only .doc. You can then directly open the .doc file into ooWriter.

4. Another option is to simply copy and paste into a blank Writer document. You may need to then go through and setup the links you have throughout the document, and some font formatting etc may need altering.

5. Check everything appears as you want it.

6. On ooWriter’s toolbar you will see a PDF icon. This is for exporting directly as PDF. Give the file a name and allow the converter to put on the file extension (.pdf) and you’re done! OR -

7. If you wish to have some security restrictions on your eBook (Password protection, printing restrictions…) this is available from the File / Export as PDF option. Once the window is up, select your options. From the Security tab, you will be able to select password encryption, printing restrictions, and extractions of information. There, you’ve done it this time!

Note: Would you believe this isn’t just for the Writer application. ALL of the Open Office applications have this one-button PDF conversion functionality. This applies to the excel spreadsheet equivalent – Calc, and importantly for Ebook authors, the Powerpoint equivalent, Impress.

Word 97-2003

Owners of the latest version of Microsoft Office don’t have to copy their documents into Open Office anymore. There is now a PDF plugin which works perfectly. Here’s how you get this working -

1. In Word, select the Office button / Save as. You will see an option to Find out about the Save as PDF or XPS plugin.

2. Open this option, and scroll down to the link to download this extension. This will take you through your browser to the download plugins area of Microsoft Office online.

3. If this is your first time to download a plugin, you will be asked to download firstly an Original Geniune Software plugin. Once you have downloaded this and run it, you will be able to download the next plugin and have your Office applications checked for validity before the install.

4. Once through that process, you will be taken to the download button for the Save As PDF and XPS plugin. Download this as, and run to install.

5. Now, once you open up your Word document you will have a new option to Save as PDF or XPS. There are some options found in this Save As window to play with. But unlike Open Office, Microsoft’s PDF converter doesn’t have password or printing security options.

Without OpenOffice or Microsoft’s PDF Plugin

For those who don’t or can’t use OpenOffice applications (perhaps you have a document in a non-compatible format?) there are still some excellent freeware PDF conversion applications out there.

When choosing these, make sure the program doesn’t put in its own advertising blurbs somewhere – quite a few pop these into the bottom footer as hard-coding. Secondly, ensure the program creates live-links from any URLs / web-links you may have included in your Ebook – some don’t process these so you end up with a nice blue underlined phrase or link, but it goes nowhere.

Most PDF converters with the best options for you work like a print driver. This is a good function to have. It means that any type of document which has a File / Print function (in Windows) will allow you to select from a number of printers from a drop-down list in the Print Options window. Instead of selecting your normal printer, you will instead select your PDF Converter. From there, you will be given a choice of what to name the job, and where to save it to.

There are also some online options for converting documents to PDF. Additionally some fuller featured PDF Converter applications are available for download free – but often only for personal use, or with some limitations on full functionality.

Of all of these, here are some of my favourite methods for PDF conversion (if OpenOffice can’t be used) -

1. Purchase a copy of Adobe Acrobat (the latest version is 9). It is quite expensive, but comes with a large feature set. If PDF group documents or password protected files are a need, then this may be the way to go.

2. Adobe’s website offers online PDF conversion for free – for five conversions only. This is under the Acrobat.com brand, and also offers file-sharing and team collaborations on documents. If you want more than five, you can subscribe to the Create Adobe PDF Service as a monthly or yearly paid subscription.

3. There are many other online converters. One I like is DrawLoop – which is completely free to register for, and you can upload most Microsoft Office formats.

4. PrimoPDF is a popular desktop application for converting or printing to PDF – with passwords if you would like. PrimoPDF used to be free, and I use a free copy downloaded at the time. However the product now is downloadable with a support subscription only. This isn’t much, however, and is a one-off payment for a very good little PDF converter.

Note – both DrawLoop and PrimoPDF have a problem with links. A link written in full such as http://juicedonebooks.com will be recognised and clickable once someone reads your new PDF in Adobe Reader. However one like this – “Juiced on Ebooks” where I’ve added a hyperlink within Word, isn’t clickable in Reader. If faced with this problem, perhaps the best option to take (as it is with an article like this found online) is simply to type out the full URL for your readers. Or even simpler, this problem does not exist with PDFs converted out of Open Office applications, which is another good reason to use them with the excellent internal PDF exporter instead.