Authors Lounge discussion
The Lounge
>
Formatting Problems
date
newest »
newest »
Mod
It's probably some hidden formatting. What word processor are you using and what file format (doc, etc.) are you using?You might have to take what Mark Coker calls the nuclear option, paste the entire thing into a bare bones editor like wordpad or gedit. That will strip all of the formatting out. Then cut and paste it back into a new word document (or open office document or whatever). That usually gets rid of hidden formatting, but it gets rid of all formatting so you have to start formatting it over again. Frustrating but effective. Good luck.
Thank you, Trish and Rachel, but I have I have done a little more research and have discovered that the epub conversion process does not recognize page breaks. lol Who dropped the ball on that? I think this is something that Smashwords must have fixed when they convert your files to epub, because like I said, the epub file I dl from them looks fine when I preview it. But then again, I have tried a couple of fixes, like using different heading styles, that actually begin a couple of chapters on a new page, the way it should be. But the rest of the chapters in the book still begin right under the previous chapter. This is apparently a known problem for those converting to epub and therefore would be a big problem for B&N as well. I have had The Mission on B&N's site before. Although it is cool that anyone would offer to let us sell our craft on their site, I have found that B&N gives the least amount of support. If they stand to make a little money off of us, you would think they might make it a little easier to get our stuff onto their site. I think this is probably something they could fix. Smashwords did.
Trish, I'll send you the file. I suppose the only real problem is that it, bothers me. I mean, the story is all there and each chapter begins with its name a little bolder and centered, Just happens to be on the same page as the previous chapter.
I love Calibre. It works great for me. Of course I Open Office and I am usually converting to mobi to read on my Kindle. I have never tried epub.
Thanks Denise. I have used Calibre in the past and it works great. HTML is something I mess with once in a great while but I was thinking I might have to dig around in it for this. Tricia has just sent the file back to me and I'm willing to bet she has it figured out. I would still like to become a little more familiar with formatting this stuff for all of these e-readers though. I would like to know what smashwords does to make their epub come together for me and why B&Ns conversion process didn't.
Well, Trish, I hate to say this cause I know you took some of your busy time to look at it but it didn't work. I'm in the process of doing the nuke thing. I'll convert it to an epub file and then use an epub editor to enter page breaks. I'm learning a lot here, lol
Mod
I've been through similar issues. I found Smashwords' Mark Coker's free pamplet on formatting to be the best guide out there, and then, if I'm going to upload to another outlet, I start with the Smashwords version, paste it all into a new email (which kills all the formatting) then paste that into a new Word doc. (97/2003 format only -- the new ones are full of hidden format nightmares) Page breaks are especially an issue, as eReaders make their own page breaks, so your text should flow with no more than four returns dividing chapters. Be careful with non-standard typography as well, as substitutions are common and they usually look really awful. Good luck. Now if only MS would trim the ugly fat off of Word, then I'd have a program that didn't give me apoplexy every time I use it!
Richard wrote: "I've been through similar issues. I found Smashwords' Mark Coker's free pamplet on formatting to be the best guide out there..."
I agree, it was good & flowed very logically. I pasted into Notepad, rather than an email. I wish I'd read it prior to writing my book, though. I wasted a fair amount of time putting some formatting back & reconsidering some decisions I should have made before I got started, like paragraph style.
Has anyone else noticed a problem with the .epub format on different devices? I opted to use the block paragraph style in Horses and Farms For Fantasy Writers because indents are sometimes fine, but other times run together or put an extra line depending on what I'm reading on. This seems true of every .epub I've read. Other formats look fine & the manuscripts pass the .epub tests, but just come out odd.
Also, some hyperlinks work & others don't in .epubs. On my book, I pulled them all out & put them back in again to insure they were all are the same. (Yes, temps were all removed.) It didn't seem to make any difference. It's quite random. They work fine in other formats, too.
I agree, it was good & flowed very logically. I pasted into Notepad, rather than an email. I wish I'd read it prior to writing my book, though. I wasted a fair amount of time putting some formatting back & reconsidering some decisions I should have made before I got started, like paragraph style.
Has anyone else noticed a problem with the .epub format on different devices? I opted to use the block paragraph style in Horses and Farms For Fantasy Writers because indents are sometimes fine, but other times run together or put an extra line depending on what I'm reading on. This seems true of every .epub I've read. Other formats look fine & the manuscripts pass the .epub tests, but just come out odd.
Also, some hyperlinks work & others don't in .epubs. On my book, I pulled them all out & put them back in again to insure they were all are the same. (Yes, temps were all removed.) It didn't seem to make any difference. It's quite random. They work fine in other formats, too.
ePubs can be a lot of unforeseen trouble. It took me three of four go-arounds until I had my first two books to the point where they didn't look terrible in an eReader. The lesson, take your time, as awful as it sounds to get back to the keyboard; the payback is worth the aggravation. I can safely say that my initial releases had so many formatting issues, I lost people mid-read! And I come from a typography and design history, too. Did little to help. Only the rote saved me.
I just found out yesterday that my .mobi displays differently on the Kindle app for iPad than it does on the Kindle app for the PC. A reviewer told me the paragraphs aren't indented & ran together. Mine shows them indented with about 1.5 line space between them. Ahh!!!
I have a problem formatting my story, The Mission, as an epub for B&N. My page breaks are not being recognized. I have even re-inserted the page breaks between chapters, no dice. I have also tried to use a program called epub maker and it does not see the page breaks either. it even goes as far as to recommend that I insert them when I already have.
I have gone through the process of getting my book on Amazon, Smashwords, and even Createspace with no problems. The epub file that Smashwords created looks great. So I don't know what the hell is going on at B&N.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.