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The Innamincka Affair: Love. Lies. Mortal Danger. A lot can happen with an affair at Innamincka. Rebecca Boucher is a respected junior partner in a London law firm. When she’s sent to Australia to meet with the owner of a vast cattle property, she’s expecting a straightforward legal matter. But what she finds is Cooper Read More ...
Marriage in a Cold Climate View it on the UK Amazon Store The stark beauty of the frozen wastes of Siberia, where the cold can snap steel rails, and the empty sweep of the tundra, alternately a snow-muffled wasteland and an unexpectedly safe trackside haven, are vividly evoked. Against this backdrop, Robert Chalmers weaves an Read More ...
The Dragons of Sara Sara Innocence and terror meet in a fast-paced evocation of a time far in the future. Set among momentous happenings, Robert Chalmers catches a society on the brink of a new age. View it on the UK Amazon Store In an age far ahead in time, two young people from very Read More ...
While we all await the advent of ePub format export in Affinity Publisher, the next best thing – or maybe even the best thing according to some, is to use PDF for Print. Affinity has a large number of PDF formats to export to.
Which one do you want for your book? The answer to that is as varied as the number of print shops that are available. However… We won’t try and cover them all because it’s just too silly to try and do so.
If you need a particular PDF type for a particular job, you will most likely be told what it is you need.
But we can look at some broad meanings of the list that Affinity presents.
This useful link to a YouTube tutorial will show you how to convert a pdf file to an ePub file for free, using Google Docs. I can’t make any comments on its effectiveness. In fact, it may be more trouble than its worth.
To publish a PDF file you can follow the advice contained in the Affinity Publisher Help document. If you can find it. It’s well-hidden… Now they call the items in the drop-down list Presets. And I suppose they are. But it’s very detailed so worth the look. I reproduce them below.
And this broadly all means the following.
You should be aware, that if you are producing for eBooks. Like Kindle, Kobo, Nook, and Apple etc exporting in Print format is meaningless.
So let’s have a look at this, shall we? eBooks first. The Big Boy on the block is Kindle. So what do they have to say on the subject first?
We accept PDF files, but they can contain embedded formatting and/or images that don’t convert well to eBooks. If you’d like to upload a PDF file for your book, preview it before you publish. If you see any issues or if your book doesn’t look the way you want it to, we recommend converting your PDF to a Word document and formatting it according to our eBook Formatting Guide. You can also try using the Kindle Create. This is a downloadable tool that helps you convert PDFs that contain rich graphics like charts, graphs, and equations. Learn more about Kindle Create.
It mentions converting your document to a Word document. Well, that’s not absolutely necessary.
But – the biggest header there should warn you. PDF is last on the list in their eBook formatting guide. If you submit pdf for ebooks, you will almost certainly run into problems. Yes I know, ePub is not yet available in Affinity Publisher. There are certain rules to follow for ePub books though, and you can go a long way toward alleviating any problems you may have
p.s. Kindle Create is really cool. It works. Mac or Windows. If you are doing eBooks for Kindle/Amazon, I’d suggest that you can’t be without this tool.
The most helpful thing you can do, prior to exporting for PDF for eBooks of any sort is to observe some basic Manuscript Formatting guidelines.
eBooks are at their root,
When your PDF is properly formatted, you’ll avoid problems when reading your ePub file. The trick to creating a PDF file that converts properly into ePub is to set up the pages in a way that can be read by an e-reader and to use the word processor’s built-in formatting styles. Here are a few tips: For ePub, with the following settings you can hardly go wrong.
So, that’s the basics of formatting. There are a lot of other options that you could add. Adding images for example, table of contents, indexes and so on. That’s really for another tutorial.
To a PDF most suitable for uploading to an ebook publisher, or using directly on a web page of sending to ebook readers directly.
If you are happy with your document in Publisher, click on Export in the toolbar.
Recall I mentioned that eBooks are based basically on the HTML format? That’s what used on the web pages on the internet, so if it looks good as a web document, it will almost certainly translate cleanly to an ebook. Let’s try, shall we?
Recall we are looking at a document to convert to an eBook. Most publishers like Kindle require flattened images, no transparent backgrounds to images and so on. So you have two options here.
From the Affinity help file, they tell you this.
Because of the wide variation of acceptable document types accepted by third party ebook printers, like Kindle, Amazon, Kobo, Apple and so on, you may find you have to experiment.
If you don’t have any images, other than perhaps a cover image in some cases, then you are good to go. If you are distributing the document yourself as an ebook in pdf format, use the PDF (flatten) version because it doesn’t down sample the images. If your document is going to be read on the web use the PDF (for web) option.
When you are set, press enter.
PDF ( for web) results. In Adobe Reader.
This is the same document opened in Chrome.
The last view, opened in Kindle for Mac
So you can see just using the PDF is very versatile in any case. This version used the PDF (for web) option but it still works in most places. If you have images, I’d recommend PDF (flatten) instead. The images will be better quality. The web images will look terrible on devices. In fact on anything other than an internet web page. Generally, the text is not affected.
Here be Dragons. Take Warning.
There are so many printers it’s impossible to cover them all, but in all cases, the print house will tell you what your document specs must be. In most cases, Affinity will be able to be set to those specs,
As Affinity is still finding its way in the market place, you will find that most print houses still refer to Acrobat or InDesign specs for PDF files.
So where they may say – Ingram Spark for example:
Acrobat Distiller, Export from InDesign
PDF/X-1a:2001 or PDF/X-3:2002
You would use the Affinity export option. PDF/X-3-2003
This option allows you;
PDF (PDF/X-3:2003)—As for PDF/X-1a:2003, but supports spot colours and allows colour management. RGB or CMYK images with attached colour profiles are supported.
Click on the More tab on the bottom of the Export window to refine your selections.
If sending to someone like Kindle, use the (flatten) version, but make sure you check the results carefully before committing it.
From that point, it will produce a PDF document that you can open in the usual way – Adobe Reader. Check you book for mistakes, errors, wrong pages and all the rest. Often, seeing your book in another format will highlight things you have missed during your edit phase.
Last Updated on October 16, 2019 by @R_A_Chalmers
