YouthPastor2000

Electronic Publishing & Archiving
By James C. Moberg

Ok... you've just authored your 500th Bible lesson and you feel it's time to compile your collection. You started with WordPerfect in college and used Lotus WordPro your first year in ministry and then switched over to Microsoft Word. You've since started your own ministry and are using Sun's free StarOffice Suite which is also compatible with Microsoft's Word Format. All these word processors are able to save their documents as HTML, but the formatting either gets messed up in the process or the entire document gets converted to a graphic. What format should you convert everything to so that it can be read by everyone regardless of their operating system, software or budget?

"Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF) is the open de facto standard for electronic document distribution worldwide. Adobe PDF is a universal file format that preserves all the fonts, formatting, graphics, and color of any source document, regardless of the application and platform used to create it. Adobe PDF files are compact and can be shared, viewed, navigated, and printed exactly as intended by anyone with free Adobe Acrobat® Reader® software." [credit]

I'm not going to go into too much detail concerning the PDF file simply because there is already an abundance of information available online concerning it. If you've done your taxes online, you'll notice that the IRS has all of the forms available in PDF format. PDF files are used everywhere and it's time you learned how to use them too.

You can purchase Adobe Acrobat 5.0 for about $250 (gasp) or you can can purchase a similar-featured PDF converter from other companies. There is another solution called FreePDF that combines 3 FREE programs to offer PDF creation from any Windows 9x/ME application. This method is entirely legal, and Adobe won't get mad... it just requires initial configuration and doesn't provide you with any enhanced features.

Once you convert your documents to PDF, you can share them with anyone online. The only requirement is a program that will read PDF files and Adobe Acrobat Reader is available online for FREE. I've install Acrobat Reader on every computer I've ever worked with because their has always been a need to use it. Many organization newsletters and tech support documentation is in PDF format.

If your ministry publishes a newsletter, save it as a PDF, upload it to your website and send email to everyone regarding where they can find it. This will really reduce the amount of money your ministry has to shell out to the government in postage to keep your sponsors & members up-to-date. This will also keep them returning to your website for information.

If you have an upcoming event that requires registration with a signature, printed a limited number of the forms for your members that do not have internet access and request that others go to the website and print out the form for completion. This will reduce your ministry's supply cost as well as provide you with a growing library of easily accessible forms.

Keep in mind:

• PDF file size grows if you use non-standard fonts and/or large images.
• Google.com appears to be indexing PDF files.
• PDF files can be streamed (ie, viewed while still downloading).
• Using Adobe Acrobat 5, you can password protect the file from being opened and/or printed.
• Using Adobe Acrobat 5, you can create forms that can be filled out electronically.

If you have Acrobat Read installed, view this article in PDF Format.

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James manages YouthPastor.com and has created numerous websites that have extensive PDF libraries. He is also in the process of converting all of the online lessons to PDF format.

Useful PDF related links:

• Adobe Acrobat Reader (FREE)
• Adobe Acrobat (Previously titled "Exchange") 5.0 ($250) - Currently the best tool for creating advanced forms & modifying existing PDF files
• HTMLDOC (FREE) - Convert HTML files to PDF or PostScript
• PDF-O-Matic (FREE) Converts a web page of your choice to a PDF File
• FreePDF (FREE) - Free PDF is a utility which allows you to create PDFs just by printing to a "Create PDF" printer, from any Windows 9x/ME application FOR FREE!
• SimplePDF ($35) - server-based pdf generation system
• BCL easyPDF ($49) - BCL easyPDF is an easy-to-use PDF Creation Tool, created specifically for you who need to produce PDF or Postscript documents without the hassle of learning complex options.
• Win2PDF ($35 - WinNT/2000 only) - Win2PDF installs as a printer under Windows NT or Windows 2000. Creating a PDF file is as simple as selecting the "print" command from any application.
• PDF File Creator (Free Demo/249 - Windows/Linux) - PDF File Creator is a programmer's tool developed by FyTek for easily creating output in PDF (Portable Document Format). You can use it to create PDF files on disk for viewing, printing, e-mailing, etc. or use it to build a PDF on-the-fly with information from a database for web users.
• PrintToPDF - (Macintosh Shareware - $20) A printer driver that creates PDF files. (Thanks to James Hurley for sending me this link!)

Please notify me of any broken links and I'll immediately and gladly correct them. Email your questions, ideas, review requests and comments to .