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NEED HELP TODAY Turning Forms CD into a Download

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dakotagts

Senior member
I am the webmaster for a site that offers products on CD with a whole bunch of word documents on it. They want me to make is a downloadable product, however most people would get lost if I made it a ISO or a ZIP.

What it has to be is something that is one file for downloading from our site, that will open by clicking on it. Maybe it can be web-based, or something that has a main menu that they can select the document they want to use.

I am in need of help and advise on what to do, remember these people will not be computer literate like most of us.

Thanks
 
tell me more about that, because It would be fine if all they did was click on the file without having to download or install any programs. Then the final result would be a folder with all the files in it.
 
i will give that a shot...

Also for a more involved process I would like to design a program that opens with a main menu, and has links to all the forms, when they click on one it opens the form. What would I use there? and i would want to be a auto loading CD
 
You could use something like cdmenu. Although I'm not sure if it supports stand alone exe files. But maybe this will give you a starting point and general direction to look in.
 
It sounds like you guys are bumping up against the need to redesign your distribution model to deal with new realities. Making the existing CD a downloadable archive with something like WinRar is fine, but you may want to think about what value the information has, and how you can use the web to enhance it, and deliver it to more customers at lower cost. Why should it be locked up in .docs in a compressed archive, as opposed to readable and searchable online for subscribers?
 
Originally posted by: Czar
just an html page with links and descriptions to the files hosted on a webserver
Click to expand...

ok I thought of that, so I would make an html page that they can save, and then link to all the form online. I guess I would need to tell them to save the forms to their computer in the html page.

also I will check out that CDmenu
 
Originally posted by: Markbnj
It sounds like you guys are bumping up against the need to redesign your distribution model to deal with new realities. Making the existing CD a downloadable archive with something like WinRar is fine, but you may want to think about what value the information has, and how you can use the web to enhance it, and deliver it to more customers at lower cost. Why should it be locked up in .docs in a compressed archive, as opposed to readable and searchable online for subscribers?
Click to expand...


It is not as nice as just allowing the public to have it even when subscribing, and we are working on free products for signing up. These are interactive forms, that I may convert to a better format than .doc files, but this is what these guys are starting with. They are not computer savvy and it take money to redue these forms to better suit us computer geeks... It is a package of forms in one subject area, so no breaking it up. For all interested in what I am talking about here is the site with the product that we are converting for easy download.

<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://www.realestateforprofit.com/secure/productdetail.aspx?pr_id=19">https://www.realestateforprofit.com/secure/productdetail.aspx?pr_id=19</a>

this may give you a better Idea of what I am trying to accomplish.
 
Ah yeah, I got it. I still think the web is a better delivery model, but you can evolve toward it. I think what you really want in this case is a CD authoring package, so you can put a nice front-end on it, and maybe store the content as a database so the docs can't be redistributed.
 
Originally posted by: Markbnj
Ah yeah, I got it. I still think the web is a better delivery model, but you can evolve toward it. I think what you really want in this case is a CD authoring package, so you can put a nice front-end on it, and maybe store the content as a database so the docs can't be redistributed.
Click to expand...


now will this act as a stand alone when downloading? also if you can link up some product with this setup that would be great or the software needed.
 
So I did use a auto extract rar file, and i like its results.

Now as far as a CD authoring program. I want some names of user friendly ones that will not require hours of manual reading. I can deal with most apps, unless it requires tons of coding. I would like something that I might have, (Microsoft office complete, photoshop, illustrator, image ready, flash "I suck at this", or some other program)

Thanks
 
what about andromeda? you will need php setup with the webserver

here is a demo on my home server - http://ar15.sytes.net:6583/

it is running on apache so it is very easy to control with .htaccess files

the nice thing about is it that it is all you do is drop whatever folders/files you want into the folders and the script makes the changes as needed. this can all be done via ftp if needed very easily.

andromeda is usually set up for mp3s but with a tiny bit of tweaking you can have it server up any type of file, plus it has the built in search capabilty - very good script

also, you can go to their site and make a new sking in a matter of minutes with a online skin generator, again, very useful

you can also go in and setup small descriptions about each file, even with a little thumbnail if you want
 
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