Post by lyn on Jun 20, 2014 21:05:44 GMT
When Carole asked questions about making pdfs, Annie and I were halfway through writing a free tips sheet - hope this helps.
This is how we make our tutorials - in the form of pdfs. There must be lots of other ways but this way works well for us so we hope it will help you too.
When you are making an item for a tutorial, take careful notes right from the start. Record everything. Stuff such as measurements, weights and colours.
Write down everything you do at every stage and take photos - lots of them. Before you move on to the next stage, check that your photos are good enough because it's impossible to go back and do them again!
Even though you've made good notes, type up your tutorial as soon as possible while everything is still fresh in your mind.
Use a word processing programme, such as 'Microsoft Word', to write your tutorial.
Choose standard margins, a simple font and use 1.5 line spacing to make your tutorial easy to read.
Your instructions must be easy to understand, and good quality photos alongside the text will help your reader see what to do.
For ease of distribution, keep the size of your pdf under 20MB. The text doesn't use up much space but digital cameras produce large photographs and even if you only put 3 unedited photos into your tutorial, you could use 12MB or more! But don't worry, we'll tell you how to reduce the size of your photos without spoiling the quality.
Take your photos carefully - use indirect/diffused natural daylight, get as close to the subject as possible and keep the camera steady so that the reader can see detail clearly.
You will need to edit your photos. You can buy a package to use such as 'Photoshop Elements', but this can be quite expensive, so we often use a free package called GIMP. It has most of the features you will find in Photoshop and certainly more than you need to edit photos for a PDF.
This is how you can improve your photos and make them a good size:
1.Make a copy of your original photo - keep the original safe - always work on the copy then if anything goes wrong you can always go back to the original and make another copy (ask us how we learned about that!)
2.Straighten the image if necessary then crop away any excess from the edges.
3.Alter the exposure if your photo is a little too dark or too light.
4.Re-size the photo. Change the ppi (pixels per inch) to 220 (this is to make it good enough quality to print - photos can be reduced further if just for display on a monitor). Then reduce the photo to the physical size you want to fit perfectly into your tutorial.
By following the steps above, you can reduce a 5MB photo to approx 200KB that will look great on screen and still print off well should your reader choose to do so.
We like to make the first page of our tutorials look like a book cover. If you don't want to do that, then please skip to the next bit.
By making a 'cover', it acts in the same way as a physical book cover to show the reader what to expect inside. It can be very simple - just a photo that mostly fills the page and that represents the content of your pdf, with its title, can be very effective.
The second page of your tutorial is a good place to introduce yourself and talk generally about the item you've made and what inspired you to make it.
If your tutorial is lengthy, you may want to number the pages then include an index on page 3.
When you've finished writing your instructions and putting in your photos, you will need to proof read your tutorial to correct spellings, grammar and any points that may need clarification.
Then get a friend to read it through - does she think she could make the item from your instructions? If she's not sure of something and has to ask you, then re-write that bit!
Phew! That's the hard work done. Now you need to convert your document into a pdf. It's very simple, just follow the instructions given in the converter.
We use an Adobe converter, but there are many free ones available through the internet, for example:
PRIMO
And then there it is - done!
This is how we make our tutorials - in the form of pdfs. There must be lots of other ways but this way works well for us so we hope it will help you too.
When you are making an item for a tutorial, take careful notes right from the start. Record everything. Stuff such as measurements, weights and colours.
Write down everything you do at every stage and take photos - lots of them. Before you move on to the next stage, check that your photos are good enough because it's impossible to go back and do them again!
Even though you've made good notes, type up your tutorial as soon as possible while everything is still fresh in your mind.
Use a word processing programme, such as 'Microsoft Word', to write your tutorial.
Choose standard margins, a simple font and use 1.5 line spacing to make your tutorial easy to read.
Your instructions must be easy to understand, and good quality photos alongside the text will help your reader see what to do.
For ease of distribution, keep the size of your pdf under 20MB. The text doesn't use up much space but digital cameras produce large photographs and even if you only put 3 unedited photos into your tutorial, you could use 12MB or more! But don't worry, we'll tell you how to reduce the size of your photos without spoiling the quality.
Take your photos carefully - use indirect/diffused natural daylight, get as close to the subject as possible and keep the camera steady so that the reader can see detail clearly.
You will need to edit your photos. You can buy a package to use such as 'Photoshop Elements', but this can be quite expensive, so we often use a free package called GIMP. It has most of the features you will find in Photoshop and certainly more than you need to edit photos for a PDF.
This is how you can improve your photos and make them a good size:
1.Make a copy of your original photo - keep the original safe - always work on the copy then if anything goes wrong you can always go back to the original and make another copy (ask us how we learned about that!)
2.Straighten the image if necessary then crop away any excess from the edges.
3.Alter the exposure if your photo is a little too dark or too light.
4.Re-size the photo. Change the ppi (pixels per inch) to 220 (this is to make it good enough quality to print - photos can be reduced further if just for display on a monitor). Then reduce the photo to the physical size you want to fit perfectly into your tutorial.
By following the steps above, you can reduce a 5MB photo to approx 200KB that will look great on screen and still print off well should your reader choose to do so.
We like to make the first page of our tutorials look like a book cover. If you don't want to do that, then please skip to the next bit.
By making a 'cover', it acts in the same way as a physical book cover to show the reader what to expect inside. It can be very simple - just a photo that mostly fills the page and that represents the content of your pdf, with its title, can be very effective.
The second page of your tutorial is a good place to introduce yourself and talk generally about the item you've made and what inspired you to make it.
If your tutorial is lengthy, you may want to number the pages then include an index on page 3.
When you've finished writing your instructions and putting in your photos, you will need to proof read your tutorial to correct spellings, grammar and any points that may need clarification.
Then get a friend to read it through - does she think she could make the item from your instructions? If she's not sure of something and has to ask you, then re-write that bit!
Phew! That's the hard work done. Now you need to convert your document into a pdf. It's very simple, just follow the instructions given in the converter.
We use an Adobe converter, but there are many free ones available through the internet, for example:
PRIMO
And then there it is - done!