OW Yeah! I have no idea how you guys did it but I was just wondering today how awesome it would be to just upload a .pdf exported from InDesign. You should have seen my face when I visited blurb.com to see the announcement!

Thanks Kathy.

I’m just disappointed that I never got to see a book in the Beta program after all my efforts. I hope support can work out why both my books fail pre-flight or I will not be able to use this facility.

I was part of the beta test for this and was very impressed. The directions were really easy to follow and the process went smoothly. I am very familiar with InDesign, using it daily for work, so it was wonderful to use this powerful tool to design my book without having to follow the "Export to PDF>Import to Photoshop>Export as PNG/JPG>Insert into Booksmart" route.

If you’re trying to decide whether to do this or use Booksmart, the determining factor will be your comfort level with graphic design/photo editing principles. If you know a lot about Photoshop and InDesign, then you will appreciate this new process. If you like to keep things simple and not have to sweat the technical stuff, go with Booksmart.

As with all technology, there’s always a tradeoff between simplicity and power. Booksmart is much simpler and is designed to pretty much eliminate any rookie mistakes. InDesign is more powerful/flexible, but that means it’s easier to mess up or get confused about how to accomplish something.

This is a good first step.  Now, how about exporting a book to PDF from BookSmart or through Blurb.  Several folks have their  books published through Blurb in PDF format on Issuu.com.  They do this so that people visiting their sites can view their books in their entirety through links to Issuu.com  rather than previewing the books on Blurb.  Now that people can create their books as PDFs this will become more common so I hope that Blurb provide us all the capability to convert our books that were already created to PDFs. The point is to sell our books and a potential customer would like to see the entire book prior to purchase rather than just the first 15 pages.

Aperture Templates pleeese!

Thanks

Shrey

so how do i get started?  i’m kind of a thud-teckie. The first time I tried to Blurb a book i spent days clicking on the web site, looking to get in, not realizing i had to click on the BookSmart software on my computer—don’t say, duh!   i’m trying to learn.   it’s probably obvious to you . . .

 so HOW do i get to the PDF . . . to upload to Blurb?

I also took part in the Beta testing for the PDF upload program and although I have not recieved my book yet (it is on the way!) I can attest to what lhouck said …  it is great for those who have some experience with graphic and/ or publishing programs but the Booksmart is the way to go if you don’t want to learn all the technical aspects of bookmaking. 

For the beta I used InDesign and although I have dabbled with it in the past, I was not a proficiant user like I am with Photoshop but after studing some online tutorials and getting to know the program I am now hooked and don’t want to make my books any other way!  Blurb’s directions were really clear and easy to follow.  I love the templates and the easy upload – being able to skip converting and importing  all my .jpgs to Booksmart was a dream!

I will give a review on the finished product when my book arrives.

Bassimo:

Everything is as it was before in Booksmart except you have now got absolute freedom for the standard book pages and cover.

So, in short: no.

Postscriptum: 

Online-Tutorials about InDesign CS3 – How to create a book with InDesign – would also be welcomed.

 Thanks,
Hannes

Yes, please more tutorials on using InDesign with Blurb!!!

 Danke,

Brit

http://photocrew.com/britneyannemajure

Great ideas for tutorials. Please keep them coming. In the meantime, here’s a list of resources that you might find useful.

– Kathy

I put all my effort to be able to upload my files before the dealine for the beta testing on june 21, I finished everything around 4:30am on saturday 20 and uploaded my files, I was in the website everyday checking the status of my book and till today 06-26-09 still says "preflight" I was terrified!! after a couple of emails to customer service, they told me that my files maybe didn’t upload the correct way, that I need to re upload them, I cannot see a reset or delete option for the bad files or a re upload file option, did any of you guys had any issue uploading the files? i wish i can finish the project and have my beta book like the lucky people who just got theirs, i’m sad I was left behind, any suggestions?

Thanks for showing us samples Sally!

Sophie :)

Just thought I’d point out that when you try to preview a book on the Blurb website, there is currently a technical error which means that the cover is not displayed correctly.

I contacted Blurb support who tell me its a known issue and that its being worked on.

I noticed that the colour of the main cover image icon was somewhat less contrasty and colourful than the ones that I’d seen from booksmart uploads as well. I assume this is something to do with colour profiling. A little disconcerting… but its the final results that matter.

I just successfully uploaded a PDF generated with Aperture.

It was a very simple process, uploading took more time then figuring it out how to do it:
1. Calculate the page sizes on the blurb website (You need to get the page count correct for the cover, so you might want to create the cover after you know the number of pages of the book)
2. Create a book with a custom template with the correct page sizes for the PAGES This template is probably reusable for similar books?
3. Create a separate book with a custom template with the correct page sizes for the COVER This template is only reusable for similar books with the same amount of pages?
4. Fill the books. Don’t use the cover page or the first page and just don’t print them in the next step?
5. Print the books, one for the pages, one for the cover:
- only print the actual pages, not the covers pages created by aperture (by selecting page numbers)
- In the centre bottom of the print menu there is a button that allow you to select ‘Save as PDF-X’, use this one. I believe this option is only available if you downloaded these action scripts from an Apple website, but I’m not sure.
6. Upload. In my case the preflight accepted the PDF.

I’m really happy about this! I’m usually still changing images while composing a book and this workflow allows me to do just that without exporting/importing steps!

Disadvantage: The imagewrap areas (front, back) are not very clearly visible in Aperture in this way.

One other small disadvantage: It is very easy to add a book template with custom sizes to Aperture, but I don’t know of an option in the interface to remove templates. With templates for different numbers of pages the book templates the number of templates you genereate is very likely to grow very fast….

Well, my first PDF book has arrived and it looks great. Now I’m only concerned that a buyer would not purchase it online because the previews are faulty and show the cover misaligned.

I do find the lack of a complete online proofing step a bit disconcerting. As a final sanity check it would be great to get a full size version of the online preview that was a rendering of the complete book. Just in case an incorrect PDF was selected during the upload process. Sometimes one gets ‘fat finger’. :-)

Hey, I was just thinking about that a while ago. I like BookSmart personally, but it’s great to have other options out there for those who prefer their own layout program. Another excellent idea. Keep it up!

To get rid of the grey background in InDesign turn off that layer so you don’t have to look at it.

Hi naviglio,

If you let us know the book you’re making we’ll be happy to get you those specs (reference this post when you contact us).

-Craig

Note: Locking post due to age.