PDF Instructions

I am now at the stage of creating my PDF instructions. I began by doing this in a word document. I initially thought this is to be the most obvious choice, as I can convert my instructions into a PDF for my website. However, I found this to have its pitfalls, particularly when adding screenshots. Word would reformat and move text around the page. I have been struggling to make it visually appealing. I have decided that a template would make this task simpler, and create consistency across all the pages. I have decided to try using Powerpoint to assist me with this job. 

Although I was a little unsure whether you could convert a PTX file into a PDF, the only way to find out... was to have a go! Success!  I can now use the same template for each of my pages, text size is set to the same across all pages, and title was formated. All I do now is simply type my text in the boxes and insert a picture.

I had already pre prepared, knowing that the task required me to include screenshots as part of my instructions. When I initially set up my Keep Recipe account, I took many screenshots of  each page as I went along. This was a good idea as it has saved time now and I don't have to go back into each stage again of the sign up process. I hope that by providing plenty of visuals to go along with my instructions, it will make it clearer to my peers how to go about using my social space, and how to contribute. The site allows for many different options for signing up and later, sharing recipes. Instruction will be included for various sign up options.

23 slides later, I am finally done! Or so I thought. I logged into my Weebly account, hit the upload file icon.... FILE TOO BIG! I was gutted. I had just discovered that one limitation of Weebly's free software was a 10 MB upload limit. Want more? You pay.

I searched through the settings in powerpoint. I knew that in some programs you could reduce image quality etc, and therefore file size. I asked my partner for some advice as he had mentioned that somehow he managed to achieve this a few days ago, but on a Microsoft program... No good when I am using a Mac! I couldn't find any options for this anywhere only to compress the file which I didn't really understand.

I searched around my Weebly site '"There is always a way of getting around these issues, you just have to search for them" my partner told me. Right, I thought! I have got this far, I will not be defeated!

I my search for a solution, I discovered the 'embedded document' icon on my Weebly site. I did not have a clue what this meant, but it may have been the answer I was looking for. A question for Google... "How to embed a document using Scribd?"

I found my answer...  

HTML embed code

The easiest way to embed a document on your website is to use our HTML embed code. Open your document and click Embed in the Share and Embed section to find the code. Paste it into your site's html source, and you're done.

I uploaded my PDF document onto Scribd, this gave me the option to download the file? I was a little confused as to why you would do this when I have just uploaded it. But I clicked on the download file button anyway... to my amazement the file was now small enough to upload!

Although by complete accident, my experimentation had killed two birds with one stone. I had reduced to the file size, and learnt to embed a document onto my site. For me this was a great achievement and I was really excited that I was able to accomplish this! I was so proud!  I love this program!  I thought the options of a scrolling document or slide show feature was amazing,  so I have decided to have both options available on my website. I like the concept that  I could offer my peers the option of  viewing my instructions through a scrolling slide document on my social resource page, without the need to download instructions if they do not want to.