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A dilemma most people face while writing an eBook is whether to insert graphics in the eBook. Graphics can be illustrative and visually appealing to readers. Thus, many are tempted to include as many graphics and clip art in their eBooks as possible. However, such a move can completely backfire. Graphics increase the size of the eBook. The more graphics you use the larger the file size. This implies that it will take longer to download the eBook. Clip Art images may take less space as compared to pictures.
You may feel the need to use graphics and clip art to enhance your eBook, however, these should be used sparingly. You should also familiarize yourself with graphic types. BMP (bitmap) graphic files are popular Microsoft Windows type files. They are larger in size that GIF or JPG (or JPEG) files. So the preference is to use GIF or JPG when possible. There are also animated files called Animated GIF. You can simulate motion with this type of file. Most paint programs can convert between file types. BMP and JPG cannot be converted to Animated GIFs only regular GIF files.
Another method to reduce file size is to decrease the number of colors contained in the graphics file. You may find a palette of millions of colors available for use when 256 colors are enough to keep the image clear enough for presentation.
Ebooks can be created in different formats (.PDF, .doc and so on). I have given a brief description along with the pros and cons for each format. This should help you in selecting the right format for your Ebook.
Adobe Acrobat (PDF)
Advantages
A major advantage of the Adobe Acrobat PDF format is that files can be read on many different computer operating systems, and will generally look about the same on each. The file can include images, and there is even some limited support for audio or video clips. Links can be included both within the document and from the document to the World Wide Web. Text can be searched for words of interest. You can add your own bookmarks. You can also disable security settings related to links and bookmarks so that other users cannot edit or delete these links and bookmarks. Page views are scalable, so you make the view as large as you need to have legible text. The pages can be printed if that capacity hasn't been disabled by security settings. You need the Free Acrobat Reader software from Adobe to read these files -- versions are available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux/Unix systems. Many systems come with this reader already loaded and ready to run. It also works as a browser 'plug-in' running within your web browser.
Disadvantages
If the file is poorly formatted, it may require a large amount of horizontal scrolling to read text that has been greatly enlarged. Attempting to read these files using the Adobe eBook reader software can cause similar problems. The existence of two PDF formats, one for Acrobat Reader and one for Adobe eBook has lead to confusion. Files tend to be larger than with simpler formats, especially if images were not properly optimized beforehand. The largest drawback to this format for authors is the high cost of the Acrobat software from Adobe, though there are cheaper, less versatile options for creating PDF files available from other sources.
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