On 1/1/2012 9:26 PM, James Simmons wrote:
Karen,
If I was doing this I'd save from Word as filtered HTML, edit the HTML with Sea Monkey (a version of the Mozilla browser that contains an HTML editor) and use that to make the links for the table of contents and the footnotes. If the author used heading styles in his MS you can automatically generate an HTML table of contents using the Sea Monkey editor. If not, mark up the chapter headings as H2, H3, etc. and then generate the TOC.
This is pretty good advice, except save as regular HTML and let Tidy do the cleanup for you. Note especially that you can use heading styles in MS Word, which will convert to <h[n]> tags when you export the file. Remember that in an e-book a "Table" of contents is in reality a "List" of pointers. In ePub 3 the working group acknowledged that specifically, deprecating the much-maligned .ncx file in favor of ordered, and potentially nested, lists. Your "Table" of contents should be composed of <ol> or <ul> and <li>. ePubEditor will recognize TOC lists and automagically generate an ePub .ncx file. It can also scan your publication for explicit headers and build a nested TOC list for you as well. As one of the compromises the MobiPocket made to make up for the fact that it didn't support styles, the reader starts a new page (screen) when it encounters the <h1> element (and when it encounters the <hr> element). Take these quirks into account when building your document.
Once you have the HTML looking good the next stop is to import it into Sigil and split the file into multiple chapter files. This will generate an EPUB for you.
This advice is not so good. The ePub working group is committed to replacing all inline styles with style sheets, preferable external style sheets. The author of Sigil started his project specifically because he could not find a good tool that conformed precisely to the ePub specification. As a result, Sigil will frequently re-write your HTML to move styles around. The Kindle/Mobi format is based on HTML 3.2, and does not deal well with style sheets. I think you will find that you will often get your HTML to a point where it looks good on the Kindle, but if you let Sigil change the files at all it will spoil the Kindle version. This problem is not unique to the Kindle. One of my favorite android-based readers is the open-source CoolReader. Unfortunately, CoolReader is not yet far enough in it's development that it deals well with out-of-line styles either. This is why when I wrote ePubEditor I explicitly decided to defer to the end user's judgment as far as an HTML editor goes. ePubEditor can "clean" HTML files using user-specified style sheets, and can be used to remove or replace HTML elements without missing end tags, but it will never re-write an HTML file without the user's explicit permission. ePubEditor can also break up a single HTML file into small sections, based on the existence of specific elements (e.g. <h3 class="chapter">). If you choose to try ePubEditor, please complain to me vociferously about all the things you don't like about it.
Create a cover image using The GIMP andimport it into the EPUB.
Actually, use whatever painting tool your most comfortable with -- you can even go out to OpenLibrary.org and grab one off their web site. I have discovered, however, that most ePub readers ignore it when you specify the cover image in the guide section. You need to put a link to the cover in a small HTML file, and then include that file as the first file in the spine. Perhaps a Kindle user out there could elaborate on the best way to include a cover image for Kindle?
View the EPUB on a PC using the Nook viewer ...
The Adobe Digital Editions reader is probably the gold standard for ePub, as it was written by the same team that participates (rather high-handedly) in the ePub working group. For previewing, ADE would be my first (but not only) choice.
... and fix anything that doesn't look right. Run kindlegen on the EPUB to create a MOBI file. Check it out using the Kindle previewer.
More good advice follows, which is why it is not snipped.
Lather, rinse, repeat. It will take practice to learn to make a book that looks good on both Kindle and Nook. Both platforms have quirks.
Consider charging the guy *something* for your time. Maybe a flat rate rather than an hourly rate. Remember, do somebody a favor and they will always remember you--when they need another favor!
James Simmons