James401

Hi

What software (free or paid), is everyone using to create Ebooks or promo Videos.

I need software for my Ebooks at the moment.


James

Steve Peters Benn

Hey James

I use iWorks, Office, Creative Suite and as of February Final Cut Pro. There are lots of free equivalents but I prefer to focus on productivity than cost saving. For uploading I use Filezilla though, which is free.

Cheers

Steve

rosetrees

I use Word and then turn it into a pdf. I've been using Jing for videos but might go a bit more professional soon.

ppbiz

Hi James,

For ebooks, I simply create a PDF- you can get a free PDF creator from cute PDF or there is an inbuilt PDF creator in openoffice which is also free from openoffice(dot)org

As for videos- I use Corel Video Studio. This is paid but is really good and often have good discounts so you can pick it up for $50-$60

Rhiannon

Chris Kent

I just use Open Office to make my pdfs. It's the only free solution I'm aware of that preserves hyperlinks. Many of the other free pdf creators do not allow you to embed hyperlinks in the document and that = lost backend affiliate commissions!

safe as houses

I use Camtasia 6 for screen capture, ive found it very easy to use, and the results are professional.

For video production ive bought Sony Vegas Studio, though I am still in the early stages of getting to know it, but read some very good reports.

Hope this is of some help.

Ronak Shah

There is word 2003. Obviously it's the best available right now.

And then I convert it into PDF format using Primo PDF.

PDF Converter #1 Free PDF Creator PrimoPDF

The best part is It's FREE.

I love it. Superb stuff.

dave147

I mainly use:

Word
Openoffice
&
Kompozer

rapidscc

Open Office
Jing
Photoshop

apocrypha

Videos capturing and Basic Editing with Camtasia Studio.
Advance Video Effects with Vegas Movie Studio.
PDF Creation with PrimoPDF and MSOffice 2007
For all Graphics Work,PhotoShop.

If you are looking for free stuffs.
Alternative to Camtasia Studio(www.osalt.com/camtasia)
Alternative to MSOFFICE : OpenOffice
Alternative to Photoshop : GIMP, but can be difficult to get hold of things when you start but so very powerful
PRIMO PDF is also free.And there is a tool for warriors that can be found here.
Audacity if you are dealing with audio stuffs.

I dont think there is a good tool for Windows Users to add advance effects and filter to your videos.But,you can try some Advance Video editors for Linux OS which will work on your PC.

Good Luck Buddy

TrafficMystic

I use office for pdf's and convert them using pdfzilla.. for promo videos you cannot beat camtasia..

Bruce Eades

If you have Vista or Windows 7 it has a picture snipping tool and screen capture for your ebook and you can save them as as html,png, jpg, bmp files. Good thing this tool does it can compresses your pictures. In Word 2010 go to files-options-advanced-to image size and quality and you can compress set the picture size to 220ppi, 150ppi, 96ppi. Older Word programs in the draw settings it has the canvas which compresses the picture size.

Bruce

Bryan Toder

I'm on a Mac.

So...

• Pages (Ebook Creation)
• Camtasia (On-screen video)
• iMovie
• iDVD (If needed.)
• Amadeus Pro (Audio recording)
• Garageband (Audio creation)

And, with a Mac, I "print" to a PDF and it's created!

paulie888

For ebooks, I find that Microsoft Office 2007 works quite nicely. It exports your documents to PDF pretty well, and I've found that it actually runs quite a bit faster than OpenOffice. (Office 2007 and up has been thoroughly revised and improved.)

Camtasia works just fine for longer videos, and Jing is fast and efficient for shorter videos that are 5 minutes or less in length.

NateRivers

I make all of my ebooks in Word, and then just convert them to PDFs. I had no idea there were all these other options out there until I read this post.

paul wolfe

For the writing of eBooks I use Word...purely down to long familiarity with it.

For the laying out of eBooks though I use Adobe InDesign. If you have ever used Photoshop IN-Design is easy. And the flexibility you get in your layouts is well worth it.

I use Photoshop for images - and I bought Cover Action Pro years ago (the first version) as an Add-On to Photoshop and use that to generate images of covers, CDs, journals etc.

For Videos I use a combination of iMovie, Final Cut Pro, Keynote, Screenflow and SonicFire Pro to help with audio. I'll also use Garageband for music as well.

On my wish list for Videos is to learn After Effects...that will have to wait until later in the year though, too busy.

Bingo123

Microsoft Word 2007 has a great add-on which let's you convert it into a .pdf for free. I forget what's it's called but I'm sure if you Google it you will find it.
So all I do then is create my e-book in word, then go to 'Save As' and you will see an option for .pdf.

Works amazingly well!

aboutalhah

I use open office to create ebook. Works wonder.

Franck

AdamLCasey

Apple's Keynote and Screenflow for the mac is enough most of the time for my marketing videos. See example in my sig

paul wolfe

Couldn't get that video to play.....using Firefox. Any thoughts?

abhi1

I mostly use MS Word and convert PDF's using DoPDF.

Colin Palfrey

I use either OpenOffice or Word 2010 depending on whether I want to use templates. Next I format it with Adobe Acrobat Pro which is the best for the job, in my opinion.

I also found that you can make a brilliant PowerPoint presentation just by formating your ebook in the correct shape. Set it to open as full-screen, then press down to scroll through the pages. Record the whole thing using Camtasia while you talk and then add effects on at the end. Works a treat, and it means I never had to learn PowerPoint which wrecks my head.

MayfairNoble

I'm creating eBooks with Apple Pages at the moment, if you have a Mac it is an excellent investment.
I create graphics with Photoshop CS5.

nvs74191

Have you considered posting the ebook content into a blog, and then converting it into a pdf from your blog, and selling it right from your wordpress blog?

The WSO in my signature shows you exactly how to build your info product business using nothing but wordpress and a few free plugins. Maybe you would like to see if it is right for you.

Brad Spencer

Personally I use open office as well and love it. You can find templates to make your ebook sexier looking online for free.

For videos, I use the software that came with my webcam for talking head and Camtasia for screencast videos. Easy to edit them both inside Camtasia as well.

It comes with a 30 day trial over at Download Camtasia Studio or Camtasia for Mac, TechSmith's Screen Recorder Software

Cheers,

Brad

MarceMontane

XnView, Photoshop, PhotoScape and
I use Open Office to write and save it in pdf

vok

MS Word and then MS paint for some graphics, then like someone else some free software to convert the word doc into PDF.

JHC81

For Ebooks I use Open Office then convert it to PDF just by clicking a button.

Shazia Mirza

Microsoft Office 2007 Has a free Publish to PDF add-on that you can get from their website.

Works like a charm!

6Horse

I like corel, bought sony vega but it's harder to learn. Corel is cheap and easy to use

bobsilber

videos = Powerpoint to Camtasia
e-books = write & design in Word, compile into PDF

rcritchett

Great question. I didn't see anyone post this.. and I just recently found this GEM of a product for creating covers called TBS COVER EDITOR -

Cost = 80 bucks

Maneuverability = Limitless

Worth it? ABSOLUTELY!!

I use Open Office to type and convert into PDF

HiAbby

Word to PDF

Screenflow is the best tool ever

Elkinton

You may not be interested in using an E-Book Complier but possibly consider it at a later time. An E-Book Compiler has to do with electronic publishing one of the plus is that your complete EBook will have total compatibility with popular web browsers including support for: Images & animations, DHTML, HTML, JPEG and JavaScript, etc. The another plus is that your complete eBook wordings can serve as visible SEO Contents during word search and not fixed text - Check out free software downloads-

Jason Fladlien

I loved word 2007 - bought a new computer and ended up upgrading to 2010 which I hate because the native PDF exporter makes my PDFs look junky!

It's amazing when you think how many tools you can use (and how expensive they are!) to create products. For example I use all of the following...

Microsoft Office (don't know what edition I have but I paid about $80)
Adobe Photoshop ($1000 plus I think $500 for the upgrades I've done)
Camtasia ($300 right?)
Dreamweaver ($300 -- which I now know longer use because...)
Editplus ($30 - where I write all my html/css/php/etc. in...)
Instant Teleseminar for audios ($50 a month initially, I pay more because of usage)
gotowebinar ($97 a month and I got lucky to be grandfathered in)
freemind mind mapping software (the only FREE tool I seem to use! lol)
Snagit (this is like what $30 or something?)

And probably more I can't recall righ tnow.

However, don't let that discourage you. When I started I was broke as a joke. What did I use? Openoffice, camstudio, kompozer, freemind, gimp, free conference call, and mxsnap. All free.

However I think it's a wise investment once you start making money to go with paid tools. Camtasia is much quicker and reliable than camstudio. Open office takes waaaay too long to do what I can do in seconds in word. Instant telseminar is much preferable than a free conference call line for my coaching clients. Photoshop does things gimp can't. Etc.

Chronic IM

Hello!

It's simple for eBooks, you just make a PDF using an app from openoffice which I believe is Built-in. As for Videos, you could use several tools. I recommend Corel Video Studio although it is paid, it is really effective, easy to use and very handy. It's suitable for any workspace. You can have one for $50-$60.

Best of Luck!