Define the file format for E-book ?
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There are a number of situations in which you may find it necessary to create your own Ebook. Perhaps you want to offer information from your Web site, or self-publish a book that you haven't been able to market to a "traditional" publisher.
There are a number of situations in which you may find it necessary to create your own E-book. Perhaps you want to offer information from your Web site, or self-publish a book that you haven't been able to market to a "traditional" publisher. Perhaps you're working with an e-publisher, distributor or print-on-demand publisher who wants you to provide a fully formatted book (or who will charge extra formatting costs if you don't). The good news is that, with a few clicks of your mouse, you can convert your manuscript directly into an E-book. The most common file format for an E-book is Adobe Acrobat PDF. You'll be doing the actual "design" of your book in your word-processing program, however. (If you have a complex design that includes lots of illustrations, you may wish to use a desktop publishing program such as PageMaker or Quark; however, that's beyond the scope of this column.) Since Word is the most commonly used word-processing program (and the program in which most e-publishers will expect your document), this column will focus on formatting in Word. You do not need to actually own Adobe Acrobat to convert your Ebook into a PDF file. However, if you want to add more features to your PDF document (such as hot linked URLs, forms, or pages imported from other programs), you will need to buy the program. It costs around $200 and is well worth the price, particularly if you expect to create more than one Ebook. A badly formatted Ebook will alienate readers more quickly than a badly designed print book. At best, it will look amateurish; at worst, it will be difficult to read or "navigate." Fortunately, you can create a professional "look" with just a few simple Word commands. You'll need to consider the following elements: Page size Most books aren't formatted to an 8.5x11-inch page. Ebook are typically between 5x7 and 6x9 (with 5.5x8.5 being a typical format). Your first step, therefore, is to set a custom page size in Word's "Page Setup" menu. Margins Use Word's "Format: Document" command to set margins to a minimum of three quarters of an inch on all sides. (You may wish to set top and/or bottom margins slightly larger if you plan to use a header and/or footer.) Since Ebook don't have "left" and "right" pages, turn off the "mirror margins" option. Headers and Footers Place a "running header" at the top of each page. The easiest approach is to simply include the title of your book and the page number. You can place this information flush left, flush right, either centered or place the title flush left and the page number flush right. I recommend using a slightly smaller font size for the header, and (if you like) using italic or bold. I also like to use the "border" command to draw a line between the header and the text. Another option is to put the title in your header and the page number in your footer. To make sure that your header doesn't appear on the first page of each chapter, you'll need to use the "Insert: Break: Section: Next Page" command (rather than a page break) to separate chapters. Then, make sure that you've checked "different first page" in the "Format: Document: Layout" menu. You can also create a new header for each chapter (e.g., using the chapter title rather than the book title); to do this, turn off the "same as previous" option in the header command. Font It's best to use standard fonts such as Times, Times New Roman, Century/New Century Schoolbook, or Palatino. Non-serif fonts such as Arial or Helvetica are good for chapter headings and subheads. Use a minimum of 11 points for your text, and 12 to 14 points for subheads. (Keep in mind that the reader can increase the display size of your book when reading it onscreen.) Since some fonts look better onscreen than in print, and vice versa, test your fonts both ways! Illustrations One nice feature of an Ebook is that it doesn't cost extra to include photos, drawings, charts, etc. Illustrations do add to the total file size of your Ebook, however and this is an important consideration for the reader. (Keep in mind that many e-publishers and POD publishers won't accept illustrations.) If you have a scanner, you can scan your own illustrations and convert them to .gif or .jpg files. A program like Photoshop will enable you to crop, enlarge, or reduce those images, or make other modifications. It will also enable you to save them at a lower resolution, thus reducing file size. While Word does allow you to incorporate illustrations in your text, it's not always easy to position them precisely where you want them. If you plan to use a lot of illustrations, you might want to consider using a desktop publishing program. When laying out photos or illustrations, be sure to leave an ample margin between the image and the surrounding text, and, where appropriate, include captions. Back matter the back of your book is a good place for an index, your bio, and contact information. It's also a good place to include advertisements for any other books that you are selling. (Keep in mind that even though your book may be formatted in one page size, you can easily include 8.5x11 flyers in the same book!) Formatting in Acrobat Adobe Acrobat takes your Word document and displays it "as is" in a PDF file. To generate a PDF file, use the "print" command in Word and select the "Save as File" option under the "General" pull-down menu. Select "Acrobat PDF" as the file type and set "Destination" to "File." Hit the "print" button and your document will be converted to a PDF file. If you actually own Acrobat, you can add other useful features to your Ebook. For example, you can automatically hotlink every URL in the text (be sure to include the prefix on all URLS). I recommend underlining links or formatting them in a color, such as blue, so that the reader will easily recognize them as hotlinks. (Don't bother hot linking URLs in your original Word document, as these links won't be retained in your PDF file.) You can link your table of contents directly to the text. You can also import pages or files from other programs, including charts and illustrations. (If you plan to import files, leave a blank page in your original document, to be replaced by the imported page; otherwise, your pagination will be incorrect.) You can also set various protection levels for your book (including a restriction on printing, though I don't recommend this!). Should You Zip It? If you have a "long" Ebook i.e., a large computer file you may wish to compress it. Otherwise, your Ebook may take too long to download (which can cause a reader's computer to "freeze" or even crash). All you need to compress your Ebook is a program such as Drop Stuff or Drop Zip; you can download free demo versions of these programs for Windows or Mac from Aladdin Systems. Drop Stuff will create a .sit file; Drop Zip will create a .zip file. (I have found little difference between these two.) If you compress your Ebook file, your readers must be able to open those files again, so it's a good idea to provide a link to a site where the user can download a free version of such programs as WinZip or Stuff it Expander. Self-publishing no longer means paying a small fortune for design and printing with a little planning and the right software, you can create your own Ebook with a few clicks of a mouse!
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