[mattyb]

I've got a bout 200 photos from over the summer that I'd like to put together into a pdf or book or presentation of some sort. While I'm not looking for the cheesy frames around the pictures I would like to edit the backgrounds and text that will be next to or even on top of the photos.

What sort of electronic file should I create so that everyone (lots of family members who are mostly not computer literate) can read it? I'm really thinking pdf but don't know if its the best choice.

Any ideas?

[andi*pandi]

Anything with 200 pix is probably too big to email, so are you going to put up online somewhere, or mail cd?

A flickr album might be easiest, but if you think they'd have difficulty with that then a PDF created with Pages or InDesign is probably next. Powerpoint would be my last resort.

[mattyb]

I'd probably put the file somewhere for people to download it, maybe even Google docs.

I never thought of using Pages for the pdf. I have Pages 09, I imagine the latest version has even more templates - cheers.

[Cold Warrior]

Upload it to dropbox and just email the shared link. It's very fast. One thing to consider with online PDF is that some (most?) browsers will load it inline. For a large file, this will be slow in the browser and perhaps crash it. If I'm sharing a large pdf, I usually zip it, which triggers a download.

[mattyb]

I'll split the file into 'chapters' or sections. Didn't realise that Pages hadn't been updated - come on Apple!!

Cheers for the advice, looks like it might be a lot easier than I thought.

[David Laufer]

I really like Keynote for such applications. The latest version has a really cool "Flop" transition that makes it look like pages turning. You can export this to a .mov file that flips the page when you click, or you can set it to flip the pages automatically after a few seconds. Good Luck!

[mattyb]

Thanks for the input David.

[bluedog]

I've successfully used the iPhoto albums and created PDFs of these using a print to a printer, and then choosing the save as PDF option in the print dialog. It is easy to lay out and provides some nice and easy templates that can be moderately tweaked.

Keynote might give you a bit more flexibility, but doing it all in iPhoto seems to be a bit faster/easier for me due to it being directly integrated with your photos.

Using this option gives you the ability to have a printed version with no fuss through Apple if you really end up wanting one. The newer versions of iPhoto have added some intelligence using star ratings, geotagging and faces to help you in quickly creating a nice album.

[mattyb]

Thanks bluedog, but I don't use iPhoto. Most of my stuff is in Aperture but I'm going to use Nikon's CaptureNX more and more.