Victory in Bed... or should I say EMBED

I've been going nuts trying to solve a problem at LULU, and I finally did it.

If you read my previous post you know I was over the edge. And no one seemed to be able to help me exactly, but the suggestions evenutally led me into new areas of exploration so thank you Trish, Hillary, Sylvia, Dave Fujioka, and Madeline.

My goal was/is to create a collection of my stories to give as Christmas presents, to take with me to Vancouver when I go up for Every Day Fiction's Best of Every Day Fiction Two Launch in January, and to have available on my website. While I have a couple stories in anthologies, I don't have anything with just MY stories. My friend Angela Carlton had create a book Between the Clouds using Lulu so I thought, "I'd like to do that too."

If you want to be blasted with my frustration, check out the previous post, but here is the solution that worked for me.

My difficulties came from never ever having a bit of trouble with a PDF before and suddenly having trouble. I was hindered by the fact that I'd never really explored the Adobe site with PATIENCE.

By last night, after a long nap and several deep breaths, that's what I did.

1) I opened my Adobe Acrobat Profession 7 as a program. I did not open one of the many PDF documents I'd created during this project but OPENED THE ACTUAL PROGRAM FIRST.
2) I explored and after a while, under the EDIT menu, when I highlighted PREFERENCES I hoped maybe I would find something. There is a category list on the left-hand side and it doesn't look as if it has a thing in it to help. I'd retreated from here before because of that but this time, I studied every category carefully.

3) Eventually, again eventually, I clicked on "Convert to PDF." I didn't think it would work, but....
4) Converting to PDF opened a new window just to the right of the category window. I studied that . Clicked on--what else--MSWindows. Then on edit settings.
5) Remember that "ensure embedding" instruction" you downloaded if you too have had embedding problems???? Well the screen comes up looking just like that. Who knew? Not me.
6)I clicked on fonts. (When I did this in the Lulu version, nothing happened because obviously it's just a picture of what it looks like, not an actual linking program or if it is linking to help, I couldn't figure out how to make it work) BUT here in this newly opened screen of my on Adobe Acrobat 7 Pro, All my fonts were listed and all of them were in the "do not embed" box!!!! No wonder!!! I highlighted all the garamonds and all the timesnewromans and added them to the embed box. And Clicked OKAY.
7)I then opened my Word document that I'd been trying to upload into this particular window of Acrobat. And I made a PDF.

AND returned to Lulu fingers crossed. At Lulu

1) I uploading my new PDF document...or I tried to, but it wouldn't go. I guess it gets sleepy if it's open too long or if like me you've uploaded thirty times in the last 48 hours.
2) I closed it and restarted my computer. The best solution I have when something doesn't work.
3) I tried again with my new PDF doc. And miracle of miracles it worked. Hooray. Nervously, I opened the print ready doc....
4) It was... wasn't my new document!!!!! Had I messed up?? I studied the mess. Realized it was my very first document that I'd uploaded before I knew what I was doing. Crap. What to do?
5) I looked down where my files were listed on that Lulu upload page and deleted both my new PDF and my old word document.
6) Restarted my computer again, re-uploading my brand new PDF and...IT FINALLY WORKED. I checked it out. It was gorgeous and I was finally ready after 48 hours to move on to the cover....

So here I am ready to do the cover.

I started it last night and of course, I have a big warning sign that my 6x9 photo cover (I did the cover in photo shop so I could choose my fonts) probably wouldn't be clear!!! Today I'm going to first try making the whole cover a pdf and if that doesn't work I suppose I'll take my cover apart and fit it into one of their templates.

You guys recognize how this adventure follows a three-act structure? The act one goal set out, the optimism, the catalyst, then the BIG PROBLEM, the long second act of figuring out how to defeat the enemy (sorry, lulu) and then giving up (my marathon nap yesterday) and then the breakthrough. I'm embarking now on act 3. I'm on the edge of my seat.