|
Have you thought about
making an audio book?
Follow the process of publishing
that is described in over 90 articles
Some titles in our
bookshop
Exchange calculator
| |
Preparing ebook files - part II
Things to add
The key to a successful ebook conversion is getting a
good ‘clean’ input file, regardless of the file format or software you are
going to use.
If you have a word-processor file make a copy as the ebook source file will
be different. Give the e-source file another name to mark it as the version
you edited for conversion into an ebook. Do this before you use start to make
any changes and close the original file.
Explore the ‘save as’ options: You might need to do some experimentation to
find the
best format for the converter you are using.
(Export is another 'file' option you need to explore - you can already make web
pages and ebooks will be available soon as an export option.)
TIP: You need to prepare a special version of
your file which is suitable for ebook conversion. It is difficult, and time
consuming, to remove items such as page numbers and heading after the ebook is
complied so do it before conversion.
Having produced a 'clean' file, there are some things it is worth adding to prepare
the files for ebook conversion:
 | Style: All word processors allow you to define a document
style. Somewhere along the heading you will see a box to tell you the
style set for the place that the cursor is sitting. Explore the document
styles available (Word offers a great preview facility) as these will
define the way headings and paragraphs look. Manual formatting causes
problems so you need a disciplined approach to the design structure of
your document. Conversion software will use the style you set to compile
the ebook CSS.
 | Once you have select you style, use the style to set quotations,
captions, notes etc. DO NOT hand format these! |
| Get some style! |
| Alignment: If you have inserted some complex formatting
using tabs or the spacebar, it is advisable to remove these. If you
want a special style for quotations then it is essential to use one of
the styles provided by your software. The conversion software is much
more likely to understand what you want if you define paragraph styles
(as these can be matched with a cascading style sheet) and provide a
consistent look for your ebook. |
| Bold characters, italics and indents will
normally translate into your ebook. However, bullet points and special fonts
will not be transferred. The Sigil editor can format lists for you. |
| Justification: This can work well on the printed page but does not
translate well for ebooks. Because the reader can resize and reflow the
text, unless the text is small the layout on the screen can look
decidedly odd. |
|
| Chapters: Converters recognise a page break as a new chapter. Make
sure that the text flows through the book and only insert a page break
if you want this to be a separate chapter or section. |
| Table of Contents: Most converters will generate
these if you have tagged the heading. Go through your document and use the standard tags or
styles ( Heading 2 to Heading 4) to give the converter software a way to understand the
structure and remember that your word processor can generate a TOC for your
document which will allow you to check that it looks the way you intend.
| Along with the <h2>..<h4> tags, some software can
detect the word ‘Chapter’ if it is on its own line to let the software create a
TOC.
| Heading 1 is often reserved for book title. |
| <h2> are normally chapter headings |
| The other levels to <h6> create a layered TOC |
|
| Other converters interpret any page break you insert as
the end of a chapter, so ensure you only use these when required. |
| Sigil has an editor with allows you to check a box to identify
which items go into the TOC. |
| You can remake your TOC using the different facilities offered by
the converters and need to do so if you have edited any of the files. |
| TIP: Your word processor will
probably pick up this structure and display it in a 'goto' list - this
provides a good way to check that your file TOC will work well after
conversion |
|
| Blank lines: Most of the ebook conversion software has
an option to remove blank lines. On
paper, lines are often inserted between paragraphs, but these do not look good
on an ereader screen which has different styling rules, which is why most
converters offer
to remove them. However, the style sheet might put them back! If that happen you
will need to tackle the CSS
file. |
| Tables: You also need to look at your tables. These can be re-made using
XML but you might find it easier to turn your charts and
tables into images and insert these into the text. It is a case for some trial
and error. The converters are getting better at handling these every week and
EPUB3 handles them much better. |
| Images embed easily within your text.
But...
| If you are working from a print document, the images might have split a
paragraph. So you might want to edit the file before you start converting to
move the images because the discipline of pages no longer applies to ebooks. |
| It is worth checking the size and shape of the files. If you have a Word
file, the images could be very large making a large file and which in turn
might upset the converter. |
| You have probably
kept the image files as large as possible for printing but screens need a different
size and resolution. If you save the file as 'web filtered' or HTML, the images
are adjusted and extracted from within the text. |
|
| Meta Data: Most word-processing software
already lets you
enter meta data. In Word, for example, you can enter the title and author, and
much more. The benefit of doing this in the source file is that it will embed
itself into the ebook. If you do not do it in the source file then you might
find odd bits of data embedded in the ebook. If you look at the File>Properties
you will see a number of tags which let you enter your metadata. The vital role
of meta data is discussed later. |
| Links: Because many existing, and doubtless most of the new ereaders, will
allow you to access the web, you might want to insert urls. |
Summary
This preparation work is not a trivial task, especially as we have been used
to arranging text on the page ourselves so your old files might look fine but at
a digital level are a formatting mess. The ‘new way’ is
to tag your various
headings, and style your paragraphs so that your text is as uncluttered as
possible. The bonus of this way of working is that you can change the settings
for a style or heading, and the whole document will be adjusted. If you have put
the formatting in manually, you will need to go through and change every
element. (It often makes sense to save your source file as simple text or select
the whole file and impose a single style, such as normal, before adding heading
and styles, as suggested earlier.)
It may be a statement of the obvious, but it is amazing how many silly error
can be caught by a disciplined use of a spellchecker and grammar checker. These
tools do not replace a professional proof-read but it will eliminate typos and
silly grammar errors.
Change all these ‘text things’ early, as it is much
simpler to achieve this before the file is converted into XML - unless you are an
expert at CSS and XML coding.
Most ebookshops show covers as an icon. A beautifully designed cover image will be
reduced to a 600 pixels wide x 750 pixels high.
Keep it simple with a nice large title and a clear image. The blurb can be
moved from the back cover to the metadata.
Creating Front Matter or Preliminary pages
Ebook prelim pages.
Once the text is formatted the early pages need to be
organised. These are slightly different for the conventions established for
print books.
| Title Page with text centred with the title and author: The convention for
epub is: Heading 1: Title – If you have carriage returns in your title then
the conversion software might think you have several titles. So remove any
formatting and put it on a single line. There is a problem with sub-titles in
the ebook and you might want to include it within your title. |
| Copyright Page or publisher’s page: You can list other editions on
the
page. It is good practice to include a statement of who-owns-what in terms of
rights. It should tell people who they need to contact if they want to use any
of the content. So as a writer, you might want to link to your agent or a
website that can be used for contact. Do not use the print isbn for your
ebook: an isbn is a book industry product code so an ebook is not the
same as a printed book. |
| Dedications and acknowledgments: If you do include a dedication it should
go on its own page. In other cases you might need a larger acknowledgements section
which might serve as the dedication. |
| Possibly a preface, foreword or introduction which is just like
another chapter. |
| Links to other material you have written or websites |
| Perhaps your ebook might benefit from a summary or highlights, such as the
text that composed the back cover blurb. There is scope to experiment
especially with the new readers and enhanced software which might allow
easy access to a list of characters, character sketches, chapter
summaries etc. This can be a time of experimentation as ereaders change
some of the rules. |
Note: There is an exception to the page break rule: Inserting a page break between
preliminary pages does not make these into chapters. Converters will
normally recognise that these are not designed as chapter breaks if they are in
the opening chapter.
Back Matter
While an index does not work in the eformat, you might
choose to keep the text of the index without the page numbers and perhaps turn it into a
glossary.
There is still a place for Bibliographies, Appendices and Notes in ebooks.
MORE (part II)
| |
Does your book deserve the attentions of a
professional copy editor?
Writers Services offers a full
range of editorial services.
Glossary &
Acronyms
|
