converting a book for iphone

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I'm writing a book in word 2011 for mac, and I want to send it in PDF format to friends to proof read. I want it to open in their ibooks which is nice to use, I've set up a template that uses a 8x5 layout instead of A4 etc to make it more easily read on a small screen. When I convert it to PDF it sticks it in the middle of the page with huge white borders all the way round. Any idea of a simple way to achieve this?
 
I'm writing a book in word 2011 for mac, ?

Stop that, right now. Calibre will do a good job of conversion (see above) but Word isn't the right tool for writing a book. You need Scrivener. I used it to write my novel and other books. It has output tools for a massive variety of formats including Kindle and iBooks (iOS)

Seriously worth the investment.
 
I'll test Calibre. I'm using word as it's on my mac and easy to setup and I've used it since the early 90's ;)

I'm hoping to self publish it on Amazon and poss ibooks so will look at the other tools once I'm at that point.

thanks
 
I'll test Calibre. I'm using word as it's on my mac and easy to setup and I've used it since the early 90's ;)

I'm hoping to self publish it on Amazon and poss ibooks so will look at the other tools once I'm at that point.

thanks

Seriously, go try Scrivener. Word is doing all sorts of nasty things to the fomatting and going from Word -> PDF -> Mobi isn't best. Scrivener is easy to use and will save you loads of hassle when publishing to KDP and the iBookstore.

Oh and talking of iBooks. You will need an American tax ID (an EIN) if you wish to sell books via Apple. Easy enough to do but takes a while. You can use services like Lulu but they'll take a cut.

You could always write chapters in Word and then copy them into Scrivener for organisation and layout. I write in a program on the Mac called WriteRoom in full screen mode and then I copy that into Scrivener. Once I have the first draft completed all editing and layout/story changes are done in Scrivener. I have a punch of output (compiling in Scrivener terms) settings saved for ePub, Mobi and a complex one to send to Amazon for them to turn into a paperback.

Good luck!
 
thanks Lordsplodge... its a bit of a minefield but I'm I.T. so I can easily pick up on software, its the publishing bit I suspect that will trip me up. Apple dont seem to make it easy from what I remember. I tried to create an account (I have a Iphone dev account already) but it wasnt obvious where to start.
 
thanks Lordsplodge... its a bit of a minefield but I'm I.T. so I can easily pick up on software, its the publishing bit I suspect that will trip me up. Apple dont seem to make it easy from what I remember. I tried to create an account (I have a Iphone dev account already) but it wasnt obvious where to start.

Stick with Kindle Doredt Publishing until you have cut your teeth. Ten move on to the iBookstore.

Oh and if you have to compile for print then you'll need all the help you can get. Even using the powerful options in Scrivener, Amazon kept rejecting the document.

Oh for a old fashioned style publishing agreement where I'd have somebody to do that for me. Thankfully I have a tame graphic designer who can do the cover layout or that may have been the straw that broke the camels back.
 
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