Basic eBook Formatting: Style Sheets

What is a style sheet?

If you are venturing into the arena of ebook publishing, you no doubt have heard to use style sheets to maintain a unified and consistent look to your finished epub or mobi ebook.

Essentially, a style sheet is a file that defines the look and layout of a document. Parameters defined in a basic style sheet include page size, margins, and fonts.

When converting to a digital ebook format, such as Amazon Kindle or EPUB, the document is converted to a basic HTML [Hypertext markup Language] format with the support of a style sheet or Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The CSS is one element that defines the look of your ebook.

Create Your Word eBook Template

Depending upon the word processing software you use, and its version, setting up style sheets will vary. For the sake of expedience, I will use Microsoft Word 2008 as the software program of choice.

The built-in style sheet allows you to create your own styles and modify existing styles to achieve the desired results. Although not all the styles may be modified and deleted.

Setting Your Styles

Create A Template. If you are not using a pre-made template, then you can set up your own Word document with preferred styles and save it as a template. This is a great time saver in formatting for each subsequent manuscript you produce.

Step 1: Creating a Style

1. From the formatting toolbar, click the style “Normal” in the Styles box. Type “Chapter Title” to rename the style and press enter. If you do not press enter, the style will not be created. This action does not replace the “Normal” style, as it is built in.
2. Click the Style drop-down list and you will see the newly created style.

If unfamiliar with the HTML tags acceptable for e-book formatting, I recommend using the built-in styles or a pre-made ebook Word template.

Using the Style dialog Box

Another way to create or modify styles is to use the Style dialog box. You can create a new style by typing text and formatting it then from the Format menu, choose Style and modify, edit or delete.

Step 2: Applying Styles

If you want to apply styles to an existing manuscript, you can apply the steps related in Step 1 to your book. However, make a copy of your original manuscript first. This will preserve the original in case you run into problems with your formatting.

If your manuscript contains styles and formatting on the page, and you want to use the template you created in Step 1, then you will first need to clear the formatting from your manuscript. Again, never work from the original file.

1. Open your manuscript in word. Under File, choose “Save As” and make a copy of the document. (ie/ My Book Backup.doc)
2. Highlight the entire document (Cmd+A, or Crtl+A) and choose “Clear Formatting” from the style menu. This will erase all formatting in the book so you can apply your Template styles.

Copy the manuscript into your Style Template.

3. Highlight the entire document and copy the text (Cmd+C, or Crtl+C).
4. Open your Styles Template and paste your document. “Save As” the new document (ie/ My Book Formatted.doc)
5. Apply Heading 1 tags (H1) to all your chapters. Highlight the text for each chapter name, and select Heading 1 from the style menu.
6. Apply Heading 2 for all subheads.
7. Repeat for all Chapters in the book

Heading Tags

The heading tags are used for your ebook Table of Contents (TOC). It is important to only apply heading tags to elements you want listed in the TOC.

Note: for subsequent novels, use the Style Template as your new page. This will ensure the styles are set to your liking and save you a lot of reformatting and HTML clean up.

Conclusion

Use a CSS to format your book as much as possible. The best way to maintain some control of your ebook appearance is by using HTML tags such as heading tags (<h1>, <h2>, <h3>), in a CSS file.

NOTE: Some HTML tags/rules are not supported or are only supported minimally for the Kindle such as margins, different fonts, font sizes, and colors.

Your goal as an author is to make a positive reader experience. This includes good HTML formatting, a TOC at the beginning of the ebook, and an NCX file making it easy for readers to jump from chapter to chapter using their 5-way controller (joystick).

Excerpt from : Unruly Guides DIY Formatting Kit; 2011

DIY Formatting Kit for Kindle and EPUB Coming May 2011. A complete step-by-step do-it-yourself formatting kit to creating Kindle and EPUB files. This kit is designed to be an all-around, basic formatting process for both Kindle and EPUB eBook formats, with specific templates and instructions for fiction and non-fiction manuscripts. Includes: Formatting Guide Templates Sample files Quick Start Guides Cheat Sheets How To Videos and more.