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Kindle formating - Need help

by pierrebenoit
46 replies
Please,
can somebody share with me a simple html file to use while formating my kindle ebook. I wonder if these items are already in use:
<a name="start">
<a name="TOC">
<a name="cover">
My problem is the GO TO part of the kindle (for user)
I can use a simple .doc word for my ebook... But I can not have the TOC to display on demand.

I'm very confused even after I read the Amazon guideline. I came out with a big problem with the .NCX - Does I really need it with .doc (or HTML in ZIP) that I send to Amazon?

Thanks for your help
#formating #kindle
  • Profile picture of the author jackpinion
    I wouldn't even use Word to create Kindle eBooks... The formatting almost always ends up different than what you created in Word.

    Here's my method and it works very well... I have several Kindle eBooks doing very well in the Kindle store.

    1) Write your eBook using an Open Source program called Sigil. Sigil will create the Table of Contents for you. Saves your file as a .epub.

    2) After you create your .epub, use Calibre to convert the .epub into a .mobi file. You can also use MobiPocket to convert but I personally like Calibre. In Calibre, pay special attention to the Table of Contents configuration. Make sure you place your table of contents at the front of your eBook.

    3) Make sure your newly converted .mobi file opens up and looks good in Kindle by using the Kindle previewer. You can download this for free from Amazon.

    4) If all looks good, upload to kdp.amazon.com and start making bank.
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Gram
      Originally Posted by jackpinion View Post

      I wouldn't even use Word to create Kindle eBooks... The formatting almost always ends up different than what you created in Word.
      Have to correct you on this one. Word is the best formatting tool for the Kindle. I have formatted over a hundred books with it.
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      • Profile picture of the author jackpinion
        The BEST?

        Then I must be doing something wrong as the first three books I put up were written in Word. Nothing special. Just typed text into the document. Made it look pretty within Word. Used the 6 X 9 format.

        After uploading to Amazon, line spacing increased. Indenting was screwed up. Table of contents wasn't linked.

        I've read a multitude of tutorials online and followed them to the letter and STILL the conversion didn't look that great in the Kindle previewer while my method above looks outstanding.

        Any tips you'd like to share?
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        • Profile picture of the author gfMedia
          @jackpinion Great info about using those tools.

          For those who still insist on using Word and templates, be aware that converted Word docs may not create a fully working Table of Contents (TOC) in the Kindle's menu.

          Here is a comment I posted in a WSO so I won't link directly to it and edited as needed.
          Yes, you could do that and it might turn out okay, but many times that isn't good enough and simply doesn't look as good as it could.

          In many cases there are formatting issues that come from the fact that Word handles HTML very poorly. The best way to upload is to use a well formatted HTML file.

          Another point is that it is important to have a fully working clickable Table of Contents (TOC).

          Many times people give bad reviews because a TOC is missing and these days it pretty much is expected. Plus, you will get errors in the menu if you don't have it correct in your eBook.

          To get a fully working TOC you need to have a toc.ncx file...

          Even though Amazon doesn't enforce this requirement yet, they do state that a toc.ncx is required.

          For mini-reports of less than 10 to 20 pages..., a TOC may not be a big deal. But for a "real" quality eBook that has lots of chapters it is extremely important.
          Plus I made another comment...
          The real test is how well it works on the actual Kindle or the other e-readers once it is finally uploaded.

          If anyone is wondering if their Word upload is fully working or not just check if it has a functional nav and menu controls.

          For example: In the Kindle Previewer does the Cover (Ctrl+R), Table of Contents (Ctrl+T) and NCX View (Ctrl+N) all work without any of them popping up an error dialog? It's surprising just how many out there throw a Missing NCX file or Missing Table of Content.

          Even Mobipocket isn't completely correct. The toc bug has been there for awhile and doesn't seem to [be] an issue they are concerned about that much. That's why I do it my way.

          The final say will always be in the finished product no matter what. If it is just okay will that be enough to stand out from the crowd? Will it leave your readers with a good impression?
          And then this comment.
          To keep this as simple as possible, I found that there are 5 files needed to upload a Kindle book correctly.
          1. A correctly formated HTML file.
          2. A Book Cover graphic in the right size and format.
          3. A correctly formated toc.ncx file or a Navigational Control file.
          4. A correctly formated .opf file. The .opf file is a build file (Open Packaging Format). It is used to call other files to generate the .mobi file for your ebook.*
          5. A .prc file produced from Mobipocket Creator.
          * BTW, Mobipocket Creator was buggy for me and I couldn't add any guide info with it. I'm guessing the bug was because I have IE 9 installed. No worries... I just added that to my project as well.

          Once I got all 5 of these files created, it was a complete breeze to finish the job.
          I hope this is helpful.
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          • Profile picture of the author Paul Gram
            Originally Posted by gfMedia View Post

            @jackpinion Great info about using those tools.

            For those who still insist on using Word and templates, be aware that converted Word docs may not create a fully working Table of Contents (TOC) in the Kindle's menu.
            Just wanted to point out to others looking at this that Word can absolutely give you perfect formats on the Kindle including a fully working Table of Contents that is clickable etc. We have done hundreds of books on the Kindle using only Microsoft Word and the Table of Contents works perfectly on every Kindle Device and App.
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            • Profile picture of the author timpears
              Originally Posted by Paul Gram View Post

              Just wanted to point out to others looking at this that Word can absolutely give you perfect formats on the Kindle including a fully working Table of Contents that is clickable etc. We have done hundreds of books on the Kindle using only Microsoft Word and the Table of Contents works perfectly on every Kindle Device and App.
              I have to ask you how you link the table of contents to the various chapters. I have never done any linking within MS Word.
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              • Profile picture of the author Paul Gram
                Originally Posted by timpears View Post

                I have to ask you how you link the table of contents to the various chapters. I have never done any linking within MS Word.
                I use the bookmark feature in Word to link the TOC and it links it up for me perfectly every time.

                There are many methods out there that don't work so whatever you try, make sure and test it on your own Kindle or Kindle App before publishing your book because we have done studies and the #1 reason people leave bad reviews on Kindle books is not having a linked table of contents.
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    • Profile picture of the author Peeps66
      Originally Posted by jackpinion View Post

      2) After you create your .epub, use Calibre to convert the .epub into a .mobi file. You can also use MobiPocket to convert but I personally like Calibre. In Calibre, pay special attention to the Table of Contents configuration. Make sure you place your table of contents at the front of your eBook.

      3) Make sure your newly converted .mobi file opens up and looks good in Kindle by using the Kindle previewer. You can download this for free from Amazon.

      4) If all looks good, upload to kdp.amazon.com and start making bank.
      I experimented a little while back with Calibre and Kindle didn't like it. It must be that I was uploading an HTML file then converting it.

      When producing a Kindle ebook the files I use are
      • XHTML file for the main book
      • XHTML file for the table of contents
      • CSS files for the XHTML files
      • OPF file
      • toc.ncx file

      This may seem a long and complicated way around but you can be very specific in the way the ebook looks. You can also get rid of huge chunks of hidden coding that the .doc file has which isn't used by Kindle.

      I start the whole process off by saving the .doc page as a filtered Web page then editing it all in Notepad++

      Doing it this way, you can convert it offline to the .mobi file format using Kindle's own (KindleGen) converter. This way you know exactly how it will be when it is downloaded
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  • Profile picture of the author Matt Banks
    I recommend going to one of the self-publishing forums on the net and they have tons of tut's on this topic.
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  • Profile picture of the author Teravel
    Paul,

    Instead of just saying that Word will make perfect Kindle books. Why don't you give all of us a short lesson on how you create your books.
    Are there specific templates you use?
    How do you get the ToC to work correctly?
    How can you make sure formatting will look correct?

    I can tell you theres water in the ocean, sand in africa, and ice in antarctica... But its only words without something to back up my story. We're all here to learn, and share. I am sure you have learned something in your time here, so why not give back with a little Word to Kindle lesson.
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Gram
      Originally Posted by Teravel View Post

      Paul,

      Instead of just saying that Word will make perfect Kindle books. Why don't you give all of us a short lesson on how you create your books.
      Are there specific templates you use?
      How do you get the ToC to work correctly?
      How can you make sure formatting will look correct?

      I can tell you theres water in the ocean, sand in africa, and ice in antarctica... But its only words without something to back up my story. We're all here to learn, and share. I am sure you have learned something in your time here, so why not give back with a little Word to Kindle lesson.
      I have been here many years and have given plenty thank you.

      When someone states something that is incorrect, and it deals with the topic of something that I sell and know very well, (Word Kindle Templates) I need to set the record straight when I see incorrect information being given.

      Proper Kindle Formatting in Microsoft Word can be done with or without my Template and you absolutely don't need my product to make it work but I am not going to give away my hard work (and tick off all of my customers who paid money and see value in it) just because I choose to correct an inaccurate statement.
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      • Profile picture of the author gfMedia
        Originally Posted by Paul Gram View Post

        I have been here many years and have given plenty thank you.

        When someone states something that is incorrect, and it deals with the topic of something that I sell and know very well, (Word Kindle Templates) I need to set the record straight when I see incorrect information being given.

        Proper Kindle Formatting in Microsoft Word can be done with or without my Template and you absolutely don't need my product to make it work but I am not going to give away my hard work (and tick off all of my customers who paid money and see value in it) just because I choose to correct an inaccurate statement.
        Paul, I'm sure your work is probably great, but I'd feel much better seeing an example so I can test what you're saying.

        So do you have an example of a finished Kindle eBook that we can check out?

        What I said is accurate from what I've seen so far. If you can demonstrate otherwise wonderful, and I'll be your biggest fan.
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  • Profile picture of the author Teravel
    Wow. You put yourself on a huge pedestal like your a god at Kindle books. Yet, you've commented multiple times on this thread without providing any actual information. Nobody is asking for a hand out, free product, or anything like that. It would just be nice to see some actual information instead of "Your wrong. It can be done."

    Perhaps someone that isn't having such a sour day can share more information on creating Kindle books.

    I am researching this topic for a friend that loves to write Sci-Fi stories. So far I will be suggesting Jackpinion's layout found on post #2.
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  • Profile picture of the author lotsofsnow
    Yes, it is possible to use word to format books for Kindle.

    And if you have a good template to work from it is even easier.
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    • Profile picture of the author wealth2moms
      Hi,

      I have a template. I use Office and save as webpage filtered. Then go to Mobicreator and then check in Kindle Previewer. I see everything. Now I get a review and someone saying that there is no TOC. I wonder if my other books are like that

      Any thoughts.

      Thanks
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      • Profile picture of the author Peeps66
        Originally Posted by wealth2moms View Post

        Hi,

        I have a template. I use Office and save as webpage filtered. Then go to Mobicreator and then check in Kindle Previewer. I see everything. Now I get a review and someone saying that there is no TOC. I wonder if my other books are like that

        Any thoughts.

        Thanks
        Did you go to the 'Table of Contents' section in MobiCreator (left hand column) and specify H1, H2 etc?

        If you did and it didn't work then I suggest that you didn't set up your headings as styles in Office.

        Personally I just use the HTML and edit that myself. You can get rid of an awful lot of junk code and get it to look exactly as you want it. You get penalised by Amazon for larger files!
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        • Profile picture of the author pianorosa
          It's not that difficult to do clickable TOC for the kindle books. If you are planning to do about 10 kindle books to kickstart your Kindle empire, you can get someone in fivver to do it for you for $5. They are quite good. Just type in search "kindle". It is better not to get bogged down with the formatting issue because once you put it up on Kindle, you can get the $5 back very quickly.

          But if you are planning to do more than 100 books in Kindle, in the long run, it is faster to do your own. Might as well learn how to do them in bulk. I use Word and it is very fast and easy. Save your document in Word. I use Word 2003, not as quick as the newest version. Just google "how to do table of contents with Word" and follow the steps. Don't do any header and footer in your word document. Take out all the page numbers. After you get the TOC, you go and save your document in Word as html (Web filtered).

          Use the mobi pocket creator (it is open software) and create your kindle book with the html file. (Do not put a cover page on your html file because you want the eCover page in your kindle book.) After you upload the html file, then Click on the Add cover page. Update your cover page and build. Voila, there is your Kindle book in .prc format.

          I get accepted everytime with Amazon by following the above procedure. Your kindle book looks good with clickable
          TOC.

          Rosa
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          • Profile picture of the author robyne
            I agree 100%. Not being able to do the TOC or other things are only small pieces to the whole. It's not a deal breaker its a sales pitch.. IMHO. You know start the book out simple and charge accordingly @ 99cents or give away. You could even start a series of books that are composed of one chapter of your whole book. So if your book has 10 chapters you will create 10 books. Keep them simple... just get them out, follow your compassion and do what you can today. Each steps motivates, teaches what and what not do do. The good thing is you can upload new versions of your edits of your book on amazon. Lots of people do this for marketing purposes anyway...

            JUST DO IT. .and stop getting caught up in all the little stuff!!! I feel like a drill sargeant.

            Geoffs book explains a lot of this and more.
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            • Profile picture of the author Dean Shainin
              You can save yourself a ridiculous amount of time and suffering trying to figure out how to format for mobi Kindle. Look up Alex Tsui. He has a WSO that has saved me so much time it's insane.

              Yes, I'm plugging Alex because the time I wasted trying to figure things out was worth at least $500.

              Just wish I discovered him earlier...

              Cheers,
              Dean
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              • Profile picture of the author MaryKathan
                Originally Posted by Dean Shainin View Post

                You can save yourself a ridiculous amount of time and suffering trying to figure out how to format for mobi Kindle. Look up Alex Tsui. He has a WSO that has saved me so much time it's insane.

                Yes, I'm plugging Alex because the time I wasted trying to figure things out was worth at least $500.

                Just wish I discovered him earlier...

                Cheers,
                Dean
                Hi Dean

                Do you by chance have a link to the WSO ? I am interested in checking it out.
                I could not get anything to come up with Alex's name....I might be doing it wrong. Thanks !
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                • Profile picture of the author Dean Shainin
                  Originally Posted by MaryKathan View Post

                  Hi Dean

                  Do you by chance have a link to the WSO ? I am interested in checking it out.
                  I could not get anything to come up with Alex's name....I might be doing it wrong. Thanks !
                  Don't know if the mods will allow it but here you go...

                  http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...w-price.html#1

                  Cheers,
                  Dean
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  • Profile picture of the author Dean Shainin
    I'm such a tech dummy that I can't even figure it out with the template I have. I've been toying with to no avail. I'll probably just outsource it at this point...

    Wish I could help.

    I was going to post the template here but I don't think it would help because it's in a Word doc.
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    • Profile picture of the author pierrebenoit
      Thanks for all the answers.

      I think there is a big misundertanding (??) about converting file for kindle.
      I tied many and many methods with no success: html, word, pdf...mobypocket creator (sometimes). I don't really know how people are doing. Conversion is not complete because of no TOC and there is impossible to use the GO TO function of the kindle.
      eCub, Sigil with Calibre, sometimes mobipocket are working.

      What I just found is JUTOH and and can build file for createspace too. I like. No programmation needed. I can build for all tablets.

      No offense. I was looking for a tool to build complete solution (GO TO, TOC...) for kindle. I've found one.
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      • Profile picture of the author Martin Avis
        When I created my own first Kindle book I was confused by the contradictory instructions I received and that confusion almost made me give up. But thankfully I kept at it until I realized that the proicess is really very straightforward and my confusion was due to me trying to over complicate things.

        In Word, set page margins to 'normal' (Word's default setting), set Normal text to 12pt Times New Roman, set paragraphs for Normal text to Alignment: left; Indentation: 0cm; Spacing before: 0pt; Spacing after: 10pt; Line spacing: single.

        You can change those paragraph settings a little according to your own layout requirements but those one will do just fine.

        For headlines, set the H1 size to 16pt Times New Roman and the H2 size to 14pt Times New Roman.

        Kindle books don't really have pages as such, because the text can be resized by the reader, so don't set any headers or footers and don't insert line numbers.

        Use the Pagebreak function in Word to insert a hard page break wherever you need a new page to start in your book - a new chapter, for example.

        And if you have a table of contents, use Word's inbuilt function to create it as a series of hyperlinks, and do not show line numbers (as they will be meaningless).

        That's all there is to it.

        Save your book as a .doc file and you are done. Note that it should be a .doc file and not a .docx. On recent versions of Word that means chosing the 'save as Word 97-2003' option.

        Next you have to convert your .doc file into something that Amazon can use. Amazon themselves recommend a free program called Mobipocket Creator.

        It is very simple to use and after you've uploaded your .doc file to it and filled in a form on screen, it creates the file you need with no fuss at all. Actually, it created three files - an .html one, an .opf one and finally, a .prc one.

        It is the .prc one you need to upload to your Amazon Kindle account.

        You will also need to create an image file for the Kindle Store to use as your book's cover image - or have one created for you.

        That's all there is to it.

        Martin
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        • Profile picture of the author pierrebenoit
          Thanks for this information.
          It is right that with only a .doc, we can not have a cliquable TOC in the kindle
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        • Profile picture of the author celente
          Originally Posted by Martin.Avis View Post

          When I created my own first Kindle book I was confused by the contradictory instructions I received and that confusion almost made me give up. But thankfully I kept at it until I realized that the proicess is really very straightforward and my confusion was due to me trying to over complicate things.

          In Word, set page margins to 'normal' (Word's default setting), set Normal text to 12pt Times New Roman, set paragraphs for Normal text to Alignment: left; Indentation: 0cm; Spacing before: 0pt; Spacing after: 10pt; Line spacing: single.

          You can change those paragraph settings a little according to your own layout requirements but those one will do just fine.

          For headlines, set the H1 size to 16pt Times New Roman and the H2 size to 14pt Times New Roman.

          Kindle books don't really have pages as such, because the text can be resized by the reader, so don't set any headers or footers and don't insert line numbers.

          Use the Pagebreak function in Word to insert a hard page break wherever you need a new page to start in your book - a new chapter, for example.

          And if you have a table of contents, use Word's inbuilt function to create it as a series of hyperlinks, and do not show line numbers (as they will be meaningless).

          That's all there is to it.

          Save your book as a .doc file and you are done. Note that it should be a .doc file and not a .docx. On recent versions of Word that means chosing the 'save as Word 97-2003' option.

          Next you have to convert your .doc file into something that Amazon can use. Amazon themselves recommend a free program called Mobipocket Creator.

          It is very simple to use and after you've uploaded your .doc file to it and filled in a form on screen, it creates the file you need with no fuss at all. Actually, it created three files - an .html one, an .opf one and finally, a .prc one.

          It is the .prc one you need to upload to your Amazon Kindle account.

          You will also need to create an image file for the Kindle Store to use as your book's cover image - or have one created for you.

          That's all there is to it.

          Martin
          Awesome tips there, I have probably stuffed up a few kindle books, cause I have not followed good advice such as this.

          I am sure doing this and treating and setting things up professionally will pay off in the end. Gunna try again at the end of this year, so thanks for the tips.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Chicas
    Thanks for all the great info Martin, and everyone else. It's a good start, and maybe I'll dare give it a shot and try it before outsourcing one of these days.

    On the positive side I think that the whole process is getting easier each day with new tools that are coming out, but just like anything else on net - it takes more than just a push of a few buttons.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jules1108
    I’m finding whenever i publish a book to kindle it never puts any of my keywords/words from the book in the url of my kindle like everyone else i just get amazon.com/dp/243123121 dp/ some number at the end every other book i check on amazon they have 4 keywords from their title before the dp/number part what am i doing wrong?
    Jules
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    • Profile picture of the author AprilCT
      I'm still confused on the TOC. I thought that creating a TOC using styles would automatically add page numbers to the TOC. How are you using Word to link the TOC?

      P.S. I only have Open Office on my computer, but I assume there's styles on there, too.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Chicas
    I don't think it has been mentioned (It's been a while since I read this whole thread) but a great program to use is Scrivener. You can make a table (with links) and export to kindle format and others.

    If anyone else has used this let me know what your experiences were.

    Thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author jacktackett
    Amazon has released a new publishing guideline:
    http://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/Am...Guidelines.pdf

    good luck to everyone.
    --Jack
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  • Profile picture of the author milla04
    Word is very easy to use to format your ebook, first you need to make sure your doc has the right margins, i suggest you head over to "page layout" tab in your word doc, then click on Size, as kindle ebooks need to be the right size, you need to select A5. Once you have done that, click on tab margins to create your own custom size, make sure its top and bottom is [1"], and left and right is [.75"]. You have your right page layout for kindle.

    Step 2. highlight your chapters h1 or h2 and click on "home" tab, then click on header1 (h1) or header2 (h2), simple. Once you have done then that, put the cursor where you want the TOC to be inserted. Click on "reference" tab, and on the left side you will see table of content. Really easy.

    If you want to make it clickable, well. That is something different. You first need to bookmark the TOC in the word doc, save as 97-2003(first step) once you have done that, save as "web page filtered," your TOC will be clickable.

    Then you have to download mobile pocket creator to create your file and navigation's.

    There are videos on how to use mobile pocket creator. Word, makes it sooo simple.

    Hope this helps
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  • Profile picture of the author colinph970
    It's made harder than it needs to be - although it took me some time to figure out the best and easiest way!
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    • Profile picture of the author gfMedia
      Lately, I've been reviewing lots of Kindle eBooks on an actual Kindle device. Many of them from people who seriously thought their eBooks were formatted perfectly. Unfortunately, a surprisingly large percentage of them have various formatting issues.

      Be aware that there is a specfic Feedback link to "...report poor quality or formatting in this book?" at the bottom of each Kindle book page.

      For eBooks to be correctly formatted for Kindle they should include a ncx file to have a fully working Table of Contents (TOC). A ncx file is actually mandatory according to the latest Kindle guidelines.

      By including a ncx file, eBooks will have a TOC that works both functionally and logically. That means having clickable links, the TOC available from the Kindle menu AND have working Nav Points.

      Nav Points are really good to have so you can jump to the beginning of each chapter using the 5-way controller's right and left buttons.

      Many times just uploading a Word doc or even saving it to filtered HTML will not be enough.

      There are several free tools available that work fairly well, but done of them that I know of give you a complete system that is geared to save you as much time as possible and provide you with premium formatting features. Each tool is focused on a single task which is both good and bad. To me it sure would be nice if everything that is needed to publish to Kindle was in one nice easy to use place.

      You can use one tool for one thing then you have to go to another tool to do something else and then finally a third tool to finish the job. That is the issue right now and that has to change IMO.
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  • Profile picture of the author ocflyfish
    I know this is a late response but I use an open source (free) tool called Calibre to convert my DOC files.

    Essentially, save as HTML, open in Calibre, input metadata (author, title, book cover, etc), input TOC commands, and convert. Takes about 3 minutes from start to finish.
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    • Profile picture of the author Peeps66
      Originally Posted by ocflyfish View Post

      I know this is a late response but I use an open source (free) tool called Calibre to convert my DOC files.

      Essentially, save as HTML, open in Calibre, input metadata (author, title, book cover, etc), input TOC commands, and convert. Takes about 3 minutes from start to finish.
      I do lots of formatting after I've converted it to HTML using Notepad++ and I've seen Word give out horrendous code in places. e.g. sometimes you want an empty line to create a bigger space inbetween paragraphs (fiction writers tend to give gaps every now and again). The code should be <p>&nbsp;</p>. Some times it puts the &nbsp; in, but sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't then you don't have that extra line space.

      Probably most of the time your ebook won't come across as any different to clean code but it might. Sometimes errors are only be apparent at certain font sizes or certain devices. Personally I don't take any chances.

      From what I remember, I don't think Calibre does the toc.ncx file that Amazon say you need but don't enforce. If they start to get tough then they may just take your ebooks down. However I could be wrong about Calibre.
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      • Profile picture of the author Peeps66
        I'm on a rant here.

        Take a look at the code after saving as web,filtered. You'll find huge amount of <span> statements which are complete junk. You'll also find a huge amount of code at the beginning that is dedicated toward defining lots of different fonts etc which I believe aren't even used! The files come with a lot of dead weight which you pay for with delivery costs.

        Rant over, for now!
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  • Profile picture of the author pierrebenoit
    As ocflyfish said. I work with word then I use Calibre and in 3 minutes, the book is ready.... with TOC
    I want to know how to resize the TABLE OF CONTENT font size. I have it bigger in all my book.
    Any idea?
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    • Profile picture of the author Peeps66
      You'll have to edit the code.

      Either edit a style sheet or use <big> tags.

      Any changes like that you need to alter the code otherwise the Amazon does it the way it want to.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mbullard
      That's right, you need to test it on a kindle device.

      The way I do it:

      Word>Save for Web (filtered)
      Dreamweaver - Cleans up html, establish TOC, etc. Save As>XHTML
      Calibre to create .epub
      Sigil to test and make edits before uploading .zip file to kindle

      I'm surprised nobody mentioned Sigil.
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  • Profile picture of the author DianaHeuser
    I bought myself this:

    http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...ve-income.html (Not an affiliate link)

    It was the BEST $27 I have ever spent. I created the book in MS Word, uploaded it and and 5 minutes later my book was ready for Kindle.

    No more messing around with templates and TOC's etc. This just did it all for me.

    Di
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  • Profile picture of the author GeruGandalf
    Hi Guys, I am a total technophobe and utterly despaired when I see all the problems you far more clued-in folks are having. if you are having all this trouble, what chance has a thoroughly ungeeky guy like me got? I don’t know the difference between a TOC (whatever it is) and TOC-H.

    I uploaded my book “Words on the Way” (A Guide to Understanding Sanskrit) onto Kindle in a PDF, under the assumption that a PDF was like a photo and kept everything in place. Alas, when I checked my book on the Kindle website, it was a total shambles. None of the diacritical marks formatted, the words and paragraphs were (and are still) all bunched up together making a complete mess of the book. No one could possibly buy it in that state. (Check it out if you have time).

    I contacted Kindle who told me to use Word to format it, but I cannot believe that Word will be able to format a Sanskrit font which does not exist in the Kindle repertoire.

    Is there any hope for me?

    GeruGandalf
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by Peeps66 View Post

      I'm on a rant here.

      Take a look at the code after saving as web,filtered. You'll find huge amount of <span> statements which are complete junk. You'll also find a huge amount of code at the beginning that is dedicated toward defining lots of different fonts etc which I believe aren't even used! The files come with a lot of dead weight which you pay for with delivery costs.

      Rant over, for now!
      Word adds all that "complete junk" so that other Office applications can work with the file, and for compatibility between versions. That's well and good if you are sharing docs for collaboration, but it sucks for getting usable HTML, either for Kindle or use online as web pages.

      Open Office Writer puts out clean code without all the extra stuff.
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