PDFMarkz Review Background

In this review article and video, book publisher, Pamela Sackett, shares her experience of converting PDF to InDesign, using Markzware’s stand-alone PDF converter, PDFMarkz:

Markzware:  Tell us, Pamela, about who you are and the company you work for.

Pamela Sackett: I’m a multi-disciplinary language artist, which means I write songs and scripts and books and all different artistic ways of communicating. I came up with the term, “emotion literacy,” in ’92, for a conference and, then, that developed over time. We create learning forums for insights into emotion, through language in the Arts. That’s our condensed Mission.

I’ve written 10 books and many songs. One of the books that I wrote is more of a plain English book. That is how I refer to it. The book is named “I Can: 12 Ways to Witness the Heart.” It is a tiny book that fits in your pocket and is very densely written, which is the definition of emotion literacy.

Many people have asked me, for years, because I show up with this artistic material, and people say but what is emotional literacy? It took me 20 years, but I finally put the whole story of how it came to be, in this little book.

It’s very clearly delineated. That is what I mean by it … what the benefits are, why it’s challenging, and a real basic practical application, how to think about it, so it could be better understood. There’s a woman, in India, who said after reading that book, now she knows what it is.

Markzware: I’ll leave a link to your site down below, as well. It’s very interesting what you do through the theater and the arts. You help educate these concepts. Alright, let’s jump into the books on the production side. How did you learn about Markzware?

Pamela Sackett: Through sheer desperation! I’ve been a lucky recipient of generosity from two software companies. One is a skills-based recruiting agency, in New York, and the other one is an image software, out of Australia (Canva). Both of those companies smiled on Emotional Literacy Advocates and said, “You can use our services pro bono.”

The software company out of Australia gave us access to this image software. That’s where I prepared all the pages for the song books. So, I learned the ropes. It took me a while to get that down, but I learned how to use it.

One of the projects, I put up through this agency in New York. This New Yorker cartoonist showed up and said, “I’m really curious about emotion literacy. I want to learn about it.” He started doing cartoons and immersed himself in the writing that I’ve done. He said, “May I just ‘spout’ cartoons?”

“I thought if I could crack the code and come up with a sort of a narrative formula, to go with these cartoons, maybe we could do a book.” I came up with the narrative portraits and decided this is a book for people who deliberately want to do self-reflective writing. That’s called journaling.

I developed all the pages on this software (Canva) that had been given to us. When it came time for us to do the book, we discovered the file (Canva PDF) from that service was not going to translate for Print On Demand. We started accessing these Print On Demand services, and they don’t accept that kind of file.

What it would mean is that we would have to cut-and-paste and lose all those hours I spent, designing every page, meticulously. That includes the format, where it sat on the page, how it sat on the page, what the font was, the graphics for the questions, all these things.

We actually did find a volunteer, from India, who offered to do it. But I didn’t know if she would be able to transfer everything and just preserve the format and the design right. I thought, “This is going to be weeks down the road.”

My husband is a big part of the organization. He’s an IT person, so he’s technically quite adept. I didn’t want him to start from scratch on InDesign, because that was the whole point of me doing it there (Canva). I said to Daniel, “There’s got to be a way. There’s got to be a way to get this file translated into an InDesign.”

My husband was looking online and found someone from Markzware that did a video, naming the company we were using. They mentioned their software could convert that (PDF) file from Canva.

I called the printer I use for my “I Can” book. They said they are in partnership with Canva and that they’ll accept that file. But the book, which is in color, because the cartoons are in color, would have cost a fortune to have it printed, independently, like that. So, Print On Demand was really the only way we were going to be able to do a color book — and do it sooner than later.

When Daniel found PDFMarkz, I thought, “Oh, my God! This is a miracle and it was found from a video tutorial!”

Markzware: I made a little video about Canva PDFs to InDesign, because we get a lot of them in, every day.

Pamela Sackett: I couldn’t believe my eyes! I couldn’t believe my ears! This was the remedy for this dilemma we were in. When I developed the book, I wasn’t thinking about Print On Demand, at all. I was urged to do that, because a lot of people would rather go to a more familiar site, to order a book. Our site is a beautiful site, as you know, but it’s an unfamiliar site, for a lot of people.

Markzware: Some people probably don’t know, but Canva.com is fantastic! It’s like an InDesign, but it’s online. It’s not quite as workflow-powerful as InDesign for long documents, for instance. You can do so much in Canva, including formatting styles, colors, and more.

Pamela Sackett: Yes, I had four other titles that I wanted to have musical trailers, like it did with the “I Can” book. I did them all on Canva. They gave us that gift, for the lifetime of our organization.

Markzware: They’re a great company! I really love the way that they do things. I love their products, and they keep innovating. The reality is that a lot of people still need to get things into InDesign. For example, designers need to create in the Adobe ecosystem, for printing, and for some publishing.

Pamela Sackett: Yes, I was told that there is no way you can do this, no way you can take a Canva file and get it ready for InDesign. I said, “No. There has to be something.”

We were just ‘wow,’ when we found out about it. We tried it. Daniel was there, checking it, as it came through, and there were very few things that needed to be adjusted.

Markzware: There will be some touching up, as every design is different. It can require more touching up or none. It was probably Mark Singelyn who helped you out. We don’t have any demos of our conversion products. For our preflighting product, FlightCheck, we have a fully-functional demo. However, for our conversion products, we have a web submission, where you can submit a test file. We’ll do a test conversion for you, so you can see how it works.

Pamela Sackett: PDFMarkz really worked. There can be a lot of hours and work spent, submitting the files, when you put a book out. I mean, it’s a lot of work, if you want it to be what you want it to be.

Markzware: How much time do you think it saved you, this PDFMarkz conversion?

Pamela Sackett: Well, it is hard to know. We may have had to rely on a volunteer, initially. But the thought was more like how long of a period of time, if Daniel had to have done it? Because he would only be able to work on it, during the weekend; it could have gone weeks and weeks and weeks!

Now, the book is out. It’s already benefited people’s lives. The book is titled, “Need Feel Write.” We don’t have another book in the works, but if we do, I know I could just use Markzware, again. I really enjoy working in Canva and designing pages, even though I don’t do too much of it and sit too long.

The book has gotten three reviews on Amazon and they’re all five star out of five. It’s already shown itself to be very beneficial in people’s lives. I’ve been getting emails about it. The book wouldn’t have been out, now, if it weren’t for Markzware.

Markzware: Would you recommend PDFMarkz to potential buyers?

Pamela Sackett: Yes! Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh! I’ve talked to Daniel, a lot, about it. He says, “Oh, yeah, that would be so good for this and that,” as he’s probably a better person to talk to about this, technically.

Everybody I’ve met at Markzware has been amazing, just amazing, and so dear, so kind and caring people. That is a huge thank you!

Markzware: That’s important to us, as it comes from the management down, so to speak.

Pamela Sackett: I know that Canva is pretty well known, and a lot of people use it. There are a lot of people wanting to put books out and, perhaps, they’re in a similar situation that we were in, designing a book on Canva. It didn’t even occur to me that there would be some technical complication around it (Canva).

They (Canva) also have a printing service, which isn’t Print On Demand, so, I couldn’t use that. It didn’t dawn on me that there would be any technical challenges (with Canva).

When we discovered (the problem), it was a very sinking feeling. Finding Markzware, through that tutorial video, I was just gape-jawed. I said there has to be something out there.

Markzware: So, you would recommend PDFMarkz?

Pamela Sackett: Absolutely – a thousand percent!

Markzware: Great! Let’s tell Canva about it, because maybe they could help other people with the same problem. Excellent! Thank you, so very much, Pamela. It’s been a pleasure, talking to you. Where can people get more information about Emotional Literacy Advocates?

Pamela Sackett: There’s quite a bit of information on our site, which is emolit.org. That would be a great place to start. There’s access to our YouTube channel, which includes the book trailers I mentioned in a playlist.

Markzware: Pamela, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate all your information on PDFMarkz and how you got your Canva file into InDesign.

Pamela Sackett: Yes, thank you and take care.

About Canva PDF To InDesign Converter, PDFMarkz

Markzware PDFMarkz helps creatives to overcome PDF to InDesign workflow obstacles. It will convert your PDFs into new, completely editable InDesign (.indd) documents, with text, fonts, styles, colors, objects images, links, tables, and more.

Experience Markzware’s Canva PDF to Adobe InDesign converter, PDFMarkz, for yourself! It has the capability to open PDF files in Adobe InDesign, QuarkPress, Affinity Publisher, Adobe Illustrator, and Acrobat.

PDFMarkz is available as a:
Subscription for only $219,
Perpetual version for $359, or
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