Formatting text for an eReader

eBooks have been around since the 1970s (when the founder of Project Gutenberg
first typed the American Declaration of Independence into his University
mainframe terminal) and the types of eBooks have evolved to fit the hardware
screens that display them: text only screens, full-colour graphical interfaces,
grayscale e-ink e-readers, full-colour tablets.
Modern eBooks provide either fixed-layout or free-flowing text. Fixed-layout
documents always appear the same: the
page and font remain a fixed size and
items are placed in fixed locations on
that page. Word and PDF documents
are the most commonly used fixedlayout eBook files or for media-rich
enhancd eBooks. Although they are
usable on e-readers, they are best
suited for larger screens or for printing.
Free-flowing eBooks are most often
based on the HTML and CSS document
standards. The size of the page for
these documents depends on the size of
the screen they are being viewed upon.
The size of the font is chosen by the
person reading them. The format is far more flexible and open, meaning that it
can be read by almost any reading device and any size of screen.
This guide provides step-by-step explanations of how to create a free-flowing
eBook (suitable for reading on any a Kindle, Kobo, tablet or computer screen)
from a document created in a word processer like Microsoft Word.
In Part one you will prepare a Word file for conversion to an eBook format.
Part two will take you through the steps to convert that Word file into both the
mobi format for use in a Kindle and ePub for use in other eReaders.
Part three will use the Word file with one of the popular eBook aggregators,
Lulu.com.
Parts four and five will review some of the important issues surrounding
ownership of your work and ways to distribute and market the eBook.

Part One: Preparing the Word Processed file

Word processors like Microsoft Word were designed to produce documents ready
for printing. While they have been adapted in recent years to make better use of

Authors Guide to e-Publishing

eBooks, they remain full of features and special formatting for creating a fixedlayout document that will be sent to a printer.
To prepare your Word document for an eReader, you must first simplify the
formatting and layout and clean up the text. You can then use styles to create a
structure of chapters and a table of contents. Tables and charts should be
converted to images, and the images should be set to an ideal size for display on
small screens.
The process for a novel or prose fiction is generally very simple and can be
completed in an hour.
Remember, however, that preparing the text and images is only a small part of
the editing process. It is highly recommended that, before preparing your
document for publication on-line, you have it professionally proof-read.

1. Replace special charactersi

a. Replace double-quotes character with double-quotes character. It may sound
ridiculous, but it will ensure all the straight quotation marks (") are replace with
curly quotation characters ().

Straight marks are not meant for quotation. They are used for marking inches
and feet in measurements.
b. Replace all single-quote characters with single-quote characters. This will
ensure they are converted into curly single-quote characters.

c. Replace all double-hyphens (--) with the em-dash (). To do this with Words
Find and Replace dialog, enter two dashes as
the Find what. Word uses a special code in
the Replace with box for em-dashes; enter ^+
and click Replace all.
1. Replace all triple dots () with the
ellipses symbol. Put three full-stops in
the Find what box, then go to the
Replace with box, hold down the CTRL
and ALT keys and click the full-stop
once. Word will put an ellipses in the
box, then click Replace All.

Authors Guide to e-Publishing

2. Replace extra spacing

a. Replace all multiple empty lines. ePubs do not work well with empty lines. To
eliminate them, enter ^p^p in the Find what box and ^p in the Replace with
box. Then click Replace All. This will replace all double-lines with single-lines.
You will need to click Replace All several times until no more are found.
b. Replace all double-spaces with single-spaces. You will need to use Replace All
repeatedly for this as well in order to remove all the double-spaces.
c. Remove all tabs. Find ^t and replace with nothing.

3. Set Formatting with styles

a. Select the entire document (CTRL-A) and set to the Normal style by clicking
once on the box in the menu bar.

b. Set the format of the Normal style to match your preferences. To do this, first
selection one paragraph as a template. Format that paragraph as follows:

Font: Select a common font like Arial, Times New Roman, or Garamond
and set it at 12 point and black.
Paragraphs: Use
left-aligned with
single line
spacing. To show
a new paragraph,
you can either add
extra space under
the paragraph or
add an indent at
the start of each
paragraph. Avoid
doing both.

Once you have formatted the paragraph as you like it, select the entire
paragraph then right click on Normal in the Styles toolbar. From the drop-down
menu, select Update Normal to match selection. All the text in the document
should change to match the selected paragraph.
c. Format sections with Styles
a. Select each chapter title and set it to the Heading 1 style by clicking on
the Ribbon.
b. Chapter sub-sections should be set to Heading 2.

Authors Guide to e-Publishing

4. Document structure
1. Remove any headers, footers or page numbering from the document.
2. Remove any multiple column layouts. These will not work in ePubs.
3. Remove any background colours or images and any borders around text or
pages.
4. Remove any text boxes.
5. Remove automatically numbered lists. Replace the autonumbering with your
own numbers.
6. Convert all tables to images. Although in theory many eReaders can manage
tables, the results are often poor because each device manages spacing and
layout differently. To ensure your tables work in the eReader, it is best to
convert them to images.
a. Select table and cut it.
b. Open IrfanView or other image editor and paste.
c. Set the height, width and resolution of the image (see the section
Prepare images for details on how to do this)
c. Save the new file and insert it into your document.

5. Prepare images

Images should be on their own lines. Do not wrap text around images for
eReaders.
Colour images may be used, but many eReaders will only display grayscale
images, so make certain any charts still make sense in black & white.
All image files should be *.jpg or *.png files.
Amazon and other publishers set severe limits on file size, and the size of
your images can be the biggest factor here. Save copies of your images that
are below 250k, especially if you have many images.
The maximum width of the image should be 1200 pixels to fit tablets, but
600800 pixels wide will fit better on an eReader.
Use an image program like IrfanView to edit the size of the images.
Images, tables and charts already in Word can be copied and pasted into
the image program and resized there.Always use an external program to
set the image size and resolution; do not use Word for this. Prepare the
images, save the files, and then place them into the Word document.
Images are often covered by copyright. Ensure you have the rights to
reproduce the images in your digital publication.

Authors Guide to e-Publishing

You should now have a Word file that is ready for conversion to an Ebook format.
Save the file as your master copy of the manuscript. It is good practice not to put
any spaces or special characters in the file name, as this can cause difficulty online.

Part 2: Create the ePub master

eReaders normally require either the ePub standard document format or the
mobi/kf8 format which work on the Kindle eReaders. Once you have created a
clean, accurate ePub version you can use it as your master copy to send to Kindle
Direct Publishing, where it will be converted to the Kindle kf8 format.
There are a number of tools for creating ePubs. The popular writing tool
Scriviner (https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php) allows export as
ePub. Adobe InDesign (http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/indesign.html) is a
professional page layout and document design package used by publishers for
producing quality ePubs. Calibre (https://calibre-ebook.com/) is an open source
eBook management tool with excellent tools for creating, editing and converting
from and to ePubs.
In this section we will use Sigil (https://github.com/Sigil-Ebook/Sigil), another
open source tool specifically for creating and editing ePubs.

ePub
The ePub format is now in its third generation. It is an open format being
developed by the publishing community. Almost any eReader can read an ePub
file.

Authors Guide to e-Publishing

The process outlined below assumes you have already prepared a Microsoft Word
doc or docx file as outlined above. You should also download and install a copy of
Sigil or Sigil Portable (http://portableapps.com/apps/office/sigil-portable).

Before you start, make certain Sigil is using the ePub3 standard. Select
Edit/Preferences and then General Settings. Make certain Version 3 is selected
and click OK.

1. Export the master file from Word.

Open the file in Word, then select File/Save as. Select a folder for the new file,
and select the option to Save as type: Web page, Filtered.

2. Open the file in Sigil

Start Sigil, and select File/Open. By default, it will show only ePub files. Select
the option to change this to HTML and HTM files, then locate the directory
where you saved you copy. Select the file and open.
Sigil will open the HTML file into
its editor. The screen has two
main areas. On the left is the
Book Browser. This provides an
outline of the ePub you are
creating. Notice that it has folders
for several types of document,
incuding text, styles and images.
If you had any images in your
Word document, they will have
been moved into the images folder.
The text of your document will be in a single file in the text folder, along with a
file called nav.xhtml; the
latter is a table of contents.
Double-click nav.xhtml
and it will open in the
right hand side of the
screen, the editing pane
which shows either code or
a preview. Two buttons at

Authors Guide to e-Publishing

the top allow you to switch between.

3. Clean up the HTML

Word always provides overly complicated HTML and this needs to be cleaned up.
eBooks need to work on a wide range of devices and screens. The simpler the
HTML, the more likely it is to appear correctly on all those machines.
a. Replace the header data
Open your file by double-clicking on it in the Book Browser. At the top you will
see the following code.

Delete that and replace it with the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" lang="en"
xml:lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
b. Remove Word styles
Near the top of the document is a lengthy section that begins with <style> and
ends with </style>. These are all the styles that were brought over from your
document and they need to be removed. Highlight all of it and delete.
c. Clean tags
Every paragraph will be marked with <p class="MsoNormal">. You are not using
the class MsoNormal and it is best to remove it. You can do this with Sigils find
and replace tool.

Select Search/Find & Replace from the top menu bar.

In the Mode: box, select Regex. This allows for complex searches.
In the Find: box, enter <p\b[^>]+> to find all instances of a <p followed by
anything, followed by >.
In the replace box, enter <p>

Authors Guide to e-Publishing

Select Replace all to automatically clean all the <p> tags.

4. Create a CSS stylesheet

The look of an eBook is controlled by a stylesheet. If you do not create one, the
eReader will supply its own and you may not like what you get.
Word provided a stylesheet, but we deleted that already.
To create a new stylesheet, first select the Styles folder in Book Browser.
Right-click and select Add a blank stylesheet.
Copy the following styles and paste them into the stylesheet:
/* Headers */
h1, h2 {text-indent:0; font-weight:bold;}
/* Elements */
p {text-indent:10%; margin:0;}
img {border:none;}
img#coverimg {max-width:100%;}
/* Classes */
.blank1 {margin-top:15px;}
.blank2 {margin-top:30px;}
.center {text-align:center; text-indent:0;}
.chapfirst {margin-top:10%;}
.italic {font-style:italic;}

5. Use the CSS stylesheet

You must now link the stylesheet to each document you wish to apply it to. Rightclick on your text file and select Link Stylesheets. A window will pop-up with a
list of stylesheets available, including the one you just created. Select it and
choose Okay.
Now view your document in the Book View. Each paragraph will now be indented
with no space in-between. You can change the indent by changing one line in the
stylesheet.
p {text-indent:10%; margin:0;}
Change text-indent to 5% to reduce the indent, 15% to make it bigger.
Alternatively, to have no indent but a space between paragraphs, use:
p {text-indent:0%; margin-bottom:1em;}
Do not use both the indent and the space. Use only one or the other.

Authors Guide to e-Publishing

To change the colour of the chapter titles, you can add color: red; (the American
spelling) to the h1, h2 style. (If you dont want red, use a different colour name.)
h1, h2 {text-indent:0; font-weight:bold; color:red;}
If you need blank spaces in the text, use
<div class="blank1">&nbsp;</div>
or
<div class="blank2">&nbsp;</div>
For a larger gap.
Cascading Style Sheets are a powerful tool and fairly simple to use. For a good
introduction, visit http://www.w3schools.com/css/.

6. Divide document into sections/chapters

For this step, switch to Book View. Your chapter title should be at the top of the
screen. Scroll down the screen until you reach the second chapter. Place the
curser to the left of that title and click CTRL-Enter.
Sigil will automatically split the file at this point. You can see the new file in the
Book Browser. It will have a name like Section0001.htm. It will still be linked to
your style sheet.
Continue through your document, breaking each chapter into a separate file.

A good source of guidance on the uses of the following special characters can be found at
http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/index.html.
i

Authors Guide to e-Publishing