ROBUST discussion

Because of all the interest in this, we've brought forward a project that's been on the back burner for years...

Here is an auto-formatting ebook-making app that opens in Word, or in any word processor that imports Word .doc files. It will make a cleanly formatted ebook as you write it from scratch, or format a book you already have in less than ten minutes, perhaps twenty minutes maximum if it's tricky.

http//www.coolmainpress.com/gustywolfappz/B...

All ROBUSTERs are cordially invited to download a copy, to use it to make your own books better, and to let me know what you think of it.

This one makes proper ebooks. A companion app to make properly formatted book for CreateSpace follows later.

Download yours while you can get it free, because CoolMain will be selling this desirable app when it's packaged up. Let me now what you think, features you want, etc.

It's an excellent idea, Andre. Everything works as intended in LibreOffice, except aaChapHead&Title style. It didn't carry the bold part of the style over to LibreOffice, and it's set to open and function in .doc (Word2007 Format)

If the only issue there is on my end is to manually bold the chapter titles, it's an excellent beta result. I've seen far less complicated templates mess up much more, and they were finished products.

Nice work. ^_^

Thanks, Daniel. My idea is to keep the interface as simple as possible: "open and write your book".

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About the bolding not translating to LibreOffice, we fully expect some features even from the small visible feature set may not to translate to every environment. Furthermore, the netside content-grinders may not translate some of the features. Smashwords' Meatgrinder, for instance, will reset all paragraphs to indented, even those the Big Easy properly makes flush. Others won't do bolding, though they will do italics.

That's the reason for the choice of Times New Roman, which is perhaps a titch narrow as a book font, because it is a lowest common denominator font, common on all the grinders. Also, Gemma likes the idea of the narrow font saving pages and thus keeping the prices of the paperbacks sane (something Kat has also mentioned), for when we come to making the companion app to auto-format CreateSpace books.

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However... Though we're not making a big thing of it, the app is fully customizable in the user's hands. You can, for instance, go into the LibreOffice stylesheet facility and edit the BIg Easy aaChapHeads&Title style to be bold (again). It may or may not work in LibreOffice, but Amazon's AZW will (probably; it works somewhat inconsistently) decide to ignore it. But the bold chapter heads isn't as important as the consistent clean style of the indented par the Big Easy sets up, which all the grinders will accept.

And absolutely no detail in Big Easy is as important as the ease of just typing and getting a fully and CONSISTENTLY formatted manuscript when you finish typing without any necessity for the tedious paragraph by paragraph hand-formatting most writers hate so. Thus we designed the Big Easy so that no single or combination of details rejected by any word processor or grinder can break it.

I've just discovered this and downloaded it. May I suggest you guys produce a youtube video demonstrating how to use it?

And excellent idea.

I just found it, too. Looks interesting.

Does it work with Scrivener?

It works with any wordprocessor or layout programme that can import an MS Word file and export an EPUB or PDF or another .doc file; that's all of them, as far as I know. I'm just working on a better-featured version (the test is that it must be good enough for me), and after I successfully publish a book in it, in a couple days, you can can have a copy to try on Scrivener. I'm pretty near to approving it for release later this year as we've now arrived at a set of features that works with every vendor who matters, and that allows even computer illiterates to lock up goodlooking ebooks that will easily pass quality control at Apple and Smashwords, the two most difficult vendors to please on the formatting. (Given that the computer illiterate isn't also an idiot who thinks he knows more about design than I do and therefore gets "creative". Behind the curtain of simplicity there are tricky mechanisms at work, and some of them are counterintuitive.)

I've changed the font to Baskerville for the extra edge of authority and agreeableness it brings with it, removed the Helvetica altogether as unnecessary, and removed the bolding too as aesthetically displeasing (and terrifically unpredictable with various vendors and word processors), replacing it with a really big size for the single instance of the book's title font (48pt).

Wow - this is great. I've been wondering how to get a little more 'zing' into my e-books.

Thank you!

No bling, no zing. Those are counterproductive in typography. They have no place in the primary communications industries and very little place anywhere else.

This is ultra-conservative design that does precisely what type design is supposed to do, provide a clean, transparent shop window for your text. Bling and zing tell readers you're trying to hide something. This is an invisible design that makes you books look like they were published by the Big Six in solemn enclave gathered to elect a bestseller. The added value here is that more people will believe that what you say is true, and fewer will disagree violently. What I'm aiming at is to put a star on your average review and to reduce the number of really bad ones noticeably.

Thats a zing for me. LOL