: Best place and software for a one-off, quick print of a book? I have a book in Microsoft Word format which I would like printed as a book as a present for someone. It is predominately text

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Just for the record, on march 15 for LaTeX was available the new class of document: "novel". Is a streamlined configuration oriented to novel and stories. Its documentation is easy to understand and have great hints about publishing for fiction authors.

I have tried and found it well balanced and to the point. Just a clarification. It is still in the list of "experimental" packages, even it is not experimental at all. Its author created and used it for its own published books on demand.

You can get it from CTAN.org

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They have told me to use INDESIGN, GIMP OR INKSCAPE as design software, then convert to PDF.

Whoever told you that, they either hate you or are on a wrong set of meds.

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is for manipulating images, not book-length text.

INKSCAPE is a tool for creating and editing vector graphics, again, not book-length text.

Adobe InDesign would be a professional's choice for a job, but it has a steep learning curve, as any professional tool.

MS Word has an option of exporting files in PDF format, why not just do that, as @LaurenIpsum suggests?

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I must recommend LaTeX. You're able to control all sorts of different factors, and it always looks beautiful in the end - and, of course, it can be converted into a PDF file. Using the book class is your best bet - I'd check out TeX Stack Exchange for information and advice. If you don't want to download the program (it's free, by the way) you can use Share LaTeX, which is online, and then just download the resulting PDF and send it off. Both LaTeX and Share LaTeX accept diagrams, so you can create those in Inkscape or whatever, and if using Share LaTeX, upload them to the site, and then they'll show up in the document.

Hope this helps!

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