Video 1 Formatting your Word Document for HTML conversion…
Starting with a cleanly formatted Word document makes conversion to an EPUB and Kindle a lot easier. However, if you have “played” with formatting while creating your manuscript – take heart. Extra coding can be removed easily, leaving you with a Clean HTML code for ebook formatting.
Before you begin…
- Download and UnZip your eBook Formatting Kit
- Open the Tutorial Guide (mobi, epub or PDF format) and follow along with the videos
- Download and Install SIGIL. (link opens to a new window)
SIGIL is a free open source, “multi-platform WYSIWYG ebook editor.”
Here’s a short tutorial and step-by-step Video on how to format basic styles in a Word document.
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- Watch the Video (4:47 minutes)
- Open Your Manuscript
- Set the Styles for the chapter headings as Heading 1.
Don’t worry about manual page breaks and extra paragraph spaces. The next Video will take care of that. - Set your bold, italic and underline styles.
- Save your Work
Style Formatting Tips
- Use the heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc) for important segments such as Chapters and subheads
- Highlight a word and select Italic (or use the shortcut: Cmd+i or Ctrl+i)
- Highlight a word and select bold (or use the shortcut: Cmd+b or Ctrl+b)
- Highlight a word and select underline (or use the shortcut: Cmd+u or Ctrl+u)
TIP: If your manuscript requires special formatting characters or symbols, please refer to our post on Special Characters & Symbols for HTML.
DIY Formatting Video
CORRECTION: In the video I say “Command or Control “i” for underline. It is for Italic.”
NOTE: I revised the Kit in October 2011, and combined
the Manual and Tutorial into one file. I also provide a sample.epub file
(The separate Template file and PDF file are no longer included).
Continue Tutorial
You are now ready to move onto VIDEO 2 Converting a Formatted Word file to Clean HTML
D Oakley says
I am interested in purchasing your ebook formatting kit, but I have a couple of questions I hope you can answer.
First, You say you revised the Kit in October 2011, and the separate Template file and PDF file are no longer included. Do you still provide a template in the kit?
Second, Do the epubs formatted by this method end up with curly quotation marks or straight quotation marks when viewed on an ereader?
Hope you can help.
Dani
Unruly Guides says
Danica, I responded to you by email as well:
The Kit does include the template file but it is not part of the “Tutorial” folder instead of being separate. When it was a separate file in a separate folder, customers were confused on what to do with it.
The quotes I talk about was concerning the actual HTML source code. HTML requires using straight quotes. It is just a precaution when copying and pasting code from one source to another.
E-Readers will display their default font and quotes — generally curly. That is not the HTML source code I was referring to.
Please let me know if you have any other questions — Suzanne
Rich Nettleton says
Most of my books have over twenty chapters, you mention that 20 is the max?
Unruly Guides says
Rich, You can have as many chapters in your book as you want. The Video is talking about the Ebook formatting Kit — I provide a pre-made (toc.xhtml) 20 chapter Linkable Table of Contents and if your book has more chapters you can add them.
Hope this Helps,
Suz