I am looking to do a little project in the next little while but i don't know what software to use.
Basically, i want to create a "book on cd" sort of thing. My aim is to show pictures with brief descriptions of all the reef life here in Yap (or at least everything i have got photos of...)
I would like to break it down into a table of contents with headings like:
Coral
Bony Fish
Rays
Sharks
etc
You could click on one of these titles and it would bring you to that page. Then you just go along looking at photos and descriptions etc
Preferably this would be something that would self start in the computer and work on all platforms.
Any ideas?
Thanks
M
The simplest and most universal is probably Adobe Acrobat. Nothing fancy, but it works and is easy to use...
Mat
I agree with Mat, producing PDFs with Acrobat is easy, simple and the product works in all platforms. Rudie Kuiter is doing his fish books all in PDF now.
Luiz
PDF is the most "book-like" But IMO html is easier, more universal and does not require Mike to buy expensive software. Like all Adobe products Adobe Acrobat is not cheap.
What about one of the software that let you create a presentation of images on VCD or DVD disks?
I'm not an expert of that but a friend of my give me a presentation he done with menus at the beginning (like the ones you have in DVD movies disks)
It's also includes titles & sub titles in the presentation so its looks mas o menos what you need.
I will try to see what software he used.
I'll second Acroporas's recommendation to use html to do what you describe. You can put an autoplay script on the CD so that Windows machines will open the contents page immediately, and a "Mac Users Doubleclick Here" shortcut link that will open their web browser and take them to the first page...
If you're really clever, you could make a database of images, descriptions etc etc in MySQL (which is free), then use a PHP script (PHP is also free) to make your html pages from a template, which would save you a lot of work.
To me the greatest advantage of a PDF file is that you have the option of easily printing it if you want, especially in this case where he is doing an ID guide. It gets a lot more complicated to print from an HTML file(s).
Thanks for the ideas people. I don't have a freakin clue about any html code so that won't work.
Acrobat? Isn't that just like creating a Word file? Not sure how i can create a clickable thing with that program. Guess i will have to look into it (i do own that one)
I was actually thinking along the lines of Powerpoint but that is not universal.
Hmmmm
Hi Mike, you can create an index for your word file (one of those automatic indexes with different styles for chapter numbers), and when you convert the file to PDF the index becomes clickable. There is also an option to put the clickable items of the index in a window on the left side, really easy navigation.
I have a tutorial somewhere (I had to do it like this for my PhD dissertation), I will send it to you when I find it.
