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Saturday, February 16, 2013

I’ve been doing the Surname Saturday theme for six weeks now and already I’m changing things up. You may have noticed that the post from earlier today was a little different and that’s because I had a brilliant idea!

The one thing that was bothering me while working on these posts was that as research continues, the information published becomes outdated or incorrect. Instead of editing the post or republishing it, I decided that I am going to use Scribd. The blog posts will continue, but instead of the text being part of the actual post, the Scribd document will be embedded in its place.

By using Scribd, I can create a document using Word, which I have more control over than the blog post (I just don’t do heavy-duty coding anymore, and honestly, it gives me a headache), and I have more real estate to work with. When I’m done with the Word document, I simply create a PDF version and upload it to Scribd (you do not have to convert the Word document to a PDF, you can simply upload the Word file to Scribd—I just choose to make it a PDF file).

Written In Post

Written In Word

Not only do I have more control over the layout and design, I can update the Word document at anytime, even over a period of time. And when I feel there are significant changes, I can create a new PDF and upload a new version of the document to Scribd. Instead of adding a new document to Scribd, and either keeping or deleting the original, I just go to the original and put the new version “over” it. This way, I don’t have to fill in the title, description, type, etc. all over again, AND, the original link remains in tact. So if you linked to it or embedded it in a blog post or web page, no changes need to be made to those links or embeds and the newest version will be the one that is displayed.

Hopefully I’ll find some time to update the first five Surname Saturday posts using Scribd, but moving forward, this is how I will be doing them. In fact, I think I may be using this approach with other posts where frequent updates may be necessary in the future, but we’ll just have to see.

Interesting concept, Julie! Sounds like a time saver. You are such an efficiency expert!

I'm wondering, though: what would be the reason for the mid step of going to PDF before Scribd, if you said it wasn't necessary, in converting from Word? What would be the advantage of doing it that way versus the other?

Jacqi, I convert to PDF to keep the integrity of the formatting and fonts. I do this for any document I publish online, whether on Scribd or my own web server. It's probably more out of habit and the fact that I'm a control freak ;)

Julie Cahill Tarr, Genealogist

Julie is a genealogist who specializes in writing, editing, and graphic design. If you are looking for someone to help organize your family data into a book or prepare a research article for publication, Julie can help. Other services include the development of educational materials such as books/booklets, articles, and online courses. See "About Julie" for additional information.