ArthurP Posted May 23, 2015 Report Share Posted May 23, 2015 Hi everybody. After a long time writing my first book I went to upload my pdf onto Createspace this morning. The interior review came back a sea of red. The problem is that I am trying to produce an industry standard 6x9 format but the pdf was approx 8x11. It's a mess on Createspace and I don't know how to change the pdf size - I have spent the entire day looking for a solution. Can anybody please help? Has anybody else had this problem? Incidentally I tried with a RTF as well and the same problem. All thoughts/help hugely appreciated. Thanks Arthur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marguerite Posted May 23, 2015 Report Share Posted May 23, 2015 Hi, Arthur P., and welcome to the forums, The PDF reflects the page size set in the program producing it. You can adjust it after the fact by cropping the file in Acrobat (the full Acrobat Pro, not Acrobat Reader). You may also be able to crop it in Apple's free program, Preview, although I am less certain about that. I assume you have set the margins (in Word? in Storyist? what are you using to create the PDF?) so that your text is well within the 6" x 9" page size? Otherwise you will lose text when you crop. I use InDesign to typeset, and it automatically creates a PDF of the correct size based on the page specifications defined when you create a new document. Word should do that too if you have set the file up properly. CreateSpace has downloadable templates you can use for that purpose. Storyist was set up to deliver print manuscripts to agents and editors, so by default it uses a standard 8.5" x 11" page. But you can select Page Setup from the File menu, choose to set a custom size, click + to add a new one, define it as 6 in by 9 in, accept the standards for "nonprintable area," then print to PDF. Storyist adjusts the margins automatically, although you may want to narrow them a bit. To do that, open the Inspector, click on Mirror Pages, then choose your inside and outside margins (1.00 in for inside and 0.75 in for outside are good for a 6x9 page). EDITED: These instructions assume that you are using Storyist for Mac, although you have filed the question under Storyist for iPad. But there is no way I know of to print directly to PDF from the iPad app.... Could you clarify, please, exactly how you are producing this file? Hope that helps, Marguerite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArthurP Posted May 23, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2015 Hi Marguerite Firstly, thank you for the welcome and taking the time to answer - much appreciated. Unfortunately you hit the nail on the head at the end - I am writing on the Ipad app. The book is about selling up and just travelling around the world light and spontaneous, hence no Mac nor Acrobat just an iPad. The method I used was to email the book by PDF to a friend's computer and then upload to Createspace from that. All very easy except the PDF size. She is on a PC and has neither Acrobat Pro nor a InDesign. I did print versions and send the to publishers - after half a dozen rejections I decided to cut out the middleman and self-publish. But now I am stuck. Massively frustrating. If you have any further advice it would be very much appreciated. Thanks Arthur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marguerite Posted May 23, 2015 Report Share Posted May 23, 2015 Oh, okay. Well, this is not so bad. There are options, but that's probably not the best one. When you say you had the same problem e-mailing the RTF, did your friend just upload that file to CreateSpace? It probably was the same page size, although the bigger problem would be that you're then dependent on CreateSpace's (i.e., a computer's) idea of formatting. You would need to do something first to change the page size, which would require your friend to read the RTF file into Word or OpenOffice for Windows. The best option would be for her to go to CreateSpace and download the .doc template for a 6x9 file, then open the template in Word. I think it comes with instructions. If she doesn't have Word, she can download OpenOffice for free. The process is essentially the same. Follow the instructions if they are in the template. If not, the basic task is to select any text in the template, go to the Insert menu, choose File, then your RTF. Save the file. Go through the file to check it, applying formatting if needed, then save it as a PDF file. On a Mac, you choose Print, then PDF. I assume Windows uses something similar (Print to PDF, I think). The results almost certainly will not be perfect, but the PDF should be the right size. If all this is clear as mud, talk to your friend (to get a sense of how comfortable she is with Word) and write again. I'm signing off for the evening, but I will check tomorrow AM. Best, Marguerite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArthurP Posted May 23, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2015 Hi Marguerite Thank you so much. Whether this works or not your kind help is highly appreciated. I will talk to my friend and give this a go. I'll let you know the result. Many thanks and sleep well Cheers Arthur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marguerite Posted May 23, 2015 Report Share Posted May 23, 2015 You're welcome, Arthur. By the way, there is a Page Setup option in the iPad app. You can see it under the Tools (spanner) menu. It just doesn't (yet) include options for the basic CreateSpace sizes. That would be a great feature request. Best, M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.