How to: convert from a Google document to other ebook formats
In this post I’m going to describe how you can take a book you’ve written in Google docs to any other ebook format you need, such as EPUB, MOBI, or PDF.
Websites we will be using:
Smashwords
Investintech
Download your document as docx
Go to your google drive and download the document you want to convert as a docx. Make sure it’s properly formatted for the Smashwords converter before you download it. They have a handy style guide to make sure you did it correctly.
To download the file from your google drive, simply open it in your web browser, click on “file,” then “download as,” then selecting docx.
Convert to doc from docx
Go to the Investintech website and use their free service to convert the docx file to a doc file.
Use Smashwords to convert from doc
Log in to your Smashwords account and use their publishing services to upload the doc file. It will automatically convert it to all other ebook formats for you. After the conversion is complete, you can then download whichever format you desire.
If you would also like to remove the mandatory “Smashwords Edition”
Since Smashwords requires that you have a clause stating this, you may want to remove that before uploading it to other websites. To do this you will need to following the following steps.
Required software
Download the EPUB from Smashwords
Download the EPUB file that Smashwords created, then open it in Sigil. On the left of Sigil there should be a book browser (if you don’t see it, press alt+F1). There will be a few file names in there that are incomprehensible, such as tmp_49964110ad2f2bdb2040ab313101045f_ashosK.ch.fixed.fc.tidied.stylehacked.xfixed_split_000. The first one should be the one we want. Open it and use Sigil to remove the “Smashwords edition” text. Save the file.
Use Calibre to convert to other formats
You can now open the newly saved file in Calibre. Right click on the file you want to convert and click “convert books.” Select the output format in the top right corner and then click “OK.” Once the conversion is complete you can right click the file in Calibre again, then “save to disk.” The converted files will now be saved to the location you choose.
