Support for Indie Authors discussion

I just got calibre and converted my .doc into a .rtf in Word and then converted the .rtf into a .mobi using calibre and it's doing crazy things, namely adding extra data around my table and also turning the entire novel into a numbered list, where every paragraph starts with a number. Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong? I did a quick search through comments here AND on google and didn't seen an immediate answer, so thought I would ask you all.

Thanks!

I just downloaded it the other day too and converted my docx file into a mobi. It removed an important picture from the title page and I couldn’t figure out how to get it back. It also kept assuming the first photo was the cover photo, which it wasn’t. I gave up after the 3rd try. Other than that, it looked good on kindle.

I tried other ways to convert my .doc into .mobi and they all look bad, which makes me think there is something wrong with my .doc (though I've done this before with other .docs and it's been fine.) I've no idea what meta is setting this one off.

I even converted it pdf and then to mobi and that looked bad too, but at least it didn't have the table format problem.

That’s strange. I did mine from my Apple computer, but I’ve never used the program before and just may not know how to use it.

I think it must be some funky formatting (though i can't see it), so I'm stripping all formatting and trying again. Ugh. I wish I knew what was wrong so I could avoid the mistake in the future.

For me, going from *.docx to e-book format (either *.mobi or Kindle format) worked well but I admit it's just pure text in my case, no tables or images.

I don't know how well it handles *.rtf but you might try directly from *.doc(x) and see if it works better, or try converting to *.html and then convert that to e-book format.

Apparently it’s not dummy friendly enough for me hehe. Good luck!

I recently formatted my book - for both print and e-copy - in 3 hours. I had tried a Joel Friedlander product but there were issues on my computer with Adobe InDesign which my tech guy (aka, husband who used to work in IT) could not fix. His product looked good, but some computers just have issues with Adobe InDesign and according to my husband who checked around, no one's been able to figure out why.

Instead, I bought Vellum. After 2 weeks struggling with the other program, it took 3 hours to take care of it with Vellum. I almost cried I was so happy. It was a lot more expensive, but in terms of lack of frustration and ease of use, it was invaluable. Unfortunately, they only make their product to work with Apple products.

Eileen, sounds nice!

So, for my book, I stripped it of formatting (aka, copy pasted the document into a text editor then put it back into word). Then I went through, and using styles, reformatting the entire thing. Saved it as docx and converted.

Kind of a pain in the butt, but NO ODD NUMBERS! So, happy day.

Fun times, I tell you. Never had this problem before, but I guess stripping it did the job.

The general advice I've heard is that when using Word you really need to nuke all formatting. I've been able to do it fine for all formats other than .mobi on the Smashwords site by using their Word templates. That use Styles in Word rather than in-line formatting. Word puts all kinds of stuff behind the scenes that really confuses eBook converters.

But I don't use Word at all anymore for writing. I use Scrivener and my first trial recently to export to Kindle format was successful. Had a bit of work to do because I had not understood the export function prior to writing so I had to change some of my manuscript methodology (but nothing as drastic as nuking a Word doc!).

Now ... tables. It's been about 6 years since I looked into it but at least back then tables did not work with most eReaders, Kindles included. Back then I coded my eBooks by hand in html and (eReaders are simply modified web browsers) even properly coded, and passed by Kindle's checks, the html tables were totally ignored by Kindle eReaders. I ended up having to use a .jpeg of the table instead.

All that might have changed but my advice is to avoid tables and other fancy formatting if you can get away with it.

I gave up on Calibre back when I first started because at the time Kindle did not accept files generated by them. I also looked at the html generated by Calibre and found it horribly messy and littered with metadata referencing them. It didn't feel professional so I learned to do it by hand.

My personal view is that Calibre is not really much good for converting to .mobi. I use Jutoh, which works quite well for me, and I write scientific stuff, which is the hardest to get right.

My advice is, get rid of Word formatting. (Smashwords offers a free guide as to how to clean that out. I try to avoid tables, but when I can't I copy them as a .png and insert that. Same with equations. However, tables have to be very simple otherwise the ereader reproduces the image so small it is useless. You often find that with fantasy novels where the author has gon to great lengths to make this complex map, and even with a magnifying glass, you can't read it.

The next step is probably best to convert it to .htm. You can do that in word. From then on, you should be able to convert to .mobi if your compiler is any good. I can't speak for calibre.

I gave up on Calibre. It doesn't work all that well other than to view the book or document. For Kindle, I go to Amazon and up load my formatted .docx and it works. If you format in Word, you need to do it from the tool bar, not with the key board. You can't do spaces, back spaces, etc. I've gotten good enough I can even get the numbering for the sections correct and the ToC to come out right.

If I want to be extremely lazy, I'll go do Draft2Ditigal and use their tool and one of their preset formats. As for Smashwords, they are overly complicated and not worth the time for me. After asking for assistance, and getting a form letter with their formatting document attached, (which I'd already read) I will pass on using them simply because I couldn't get my question answered. (I have a low frustration level where technology is concerned.)

Considering I'm going to be using Ingram Spark for my books, I'm going to use them after paying someone who uses InDesign to make sure all my formatting is pretty and nice. That shouldn't take a small fortune.

Then again, I discovered after the last upgrade of Scrivener can now make .mobi, .epub, pdf and .docx from Scrivener. I haven't tried it yet other than converting to .docx, but I do know it can be done and supposedly works nicely. It has all the front matter and back matter you might want to use. I noticed it when I updated the last time and will be seeing if it works now that I have learned how to get the document to use a decent font. If you have Scrivener, you might want to check it out. All you need to do is to use the novel format for writing your book then have your instructions ready to review when setting up the conversion to make sure you have everything checked and formatted along with what extension you are using..

B.A. wrote: "I gave up on Calibre. It doesn't work all that well other than to view the book or document. For Kindle, I go to Amazon and up load my formatted .docx and it works. If you format in Word, you need ..."

B.A., I format from Word too and upload docx to Amazon. I have my Amazon Kindle book almost perfect, but I can't figure out how to stop it from doing some funny things, like removing an extra paragraph break space between a paragraph and the scene/time-break symbol I use (* * *). It only does it in some places. How do I stop it from removing the extra space? Do I have to convert to HTML?

* * *
As seen here, there's an extra space between the last paragraph and the scene break symbols, but it continues to remove that extra space in two areas in my book. I can't figure out how to make it stop lol.

A bit pity the thing with converting table to image came to me only in the shower when my PC was already turned off but yes, for small enough tables, that is the simplest solution.

Leah: what if you made a special paragraph type for the scene break with larger space both before and after it, instead of hard-adding extra paragraph break?

Leah, ask their tech support. If it was every time and you are formatting it the same each time, it is on their end, not yours. I do know that most of the converters will do funny things when you use the TAB key. I had an issue with it on one book and just formatted it using the paragraph spacing for that section. It didn't like my short paragraph set off by itself for some reason. It did work but was a pain to get right. without messing up the rest of the book.

Tomas, I think I tried that too.

B.A., I think I will ask them. My Word is also 2007 I think too. It’s an old version.

Lots of great advice, and also I notice I'm not the ONLY one with squirrely conversions. I am trying to convert to .mobi to hand out ARCs. And yes, Word adds all sorta meta that isn't conducive to converting, but it always baffles me when one book will convert fine, but the next won't. It's all about styles... which I will eventually just accept. :)

BTW, I had schrivner, but I work on my book on several computers so it doesn't work for me to use that program. Bummer.

The new word is better. but Nat, you can put your work into scrivener after you are through with your last edit and then compile it for what you need.

Also, if you are doing ARCs you can give them in PDF, which is how I've normally gotten them. The can read them on their kindle. All the need to do is to send it through their kindle email...oh wow, that from a lady who isn't techie at all...lol.

I actually did not think of that, B.A. How sad. Thanks for the tip!

You're super techie! I actually have the pdf printer option on my word, so that part I can do easily!

Kindles can also read *.doc and *.docx files so you can send those over as well by kindle mail.

Ah, okay, didn't know that either!

Just put "convert" into the mail subject and it'll do some base conversion. It's not as perfect as when it's turned into a "real" e-book but for reading my own drafts, it worked well enough.

I've done three conversions so far and found the best route was via html before going to Calibre. I always use styles and keep my document simple, but I still found odd bits of formatting crept into the original doc - probably a careless moment with the mouse or hitting a command key and not noticing.

I found that opening the html version in a browser and scrolling through can identify things that were messed up in the original document, rather than being caused by Calibre.

I also love the Calibre search/replace functionality. (Confession - retired IT guy). I have a standard set of changes that pick out features in the html to sort out stuff that would have to be done manually in the original document.

Nat wrote: "BTW, I had schrivner, but I work on my book on several computers so it doesn't work for me to use that program. Bummer ..."

According to the FAQ at Scrivener's web page that is not the case:

Q: Can I use Scrivener on multiple computers?
A: Absolutely! Scrivener comes with what we call a “household” licence, which means that you can install Scrivener on any machines you own and of which you are the primary user. You can also install it on the computers of family members living in the same house as you.

Please note that this does not apply if you buy from Apple’s App Store, however. Apple has its own licensing for software it sells. If you buy from the App Store, you can still use Scrivener on multiple computers, but only computers that are set up to use your Apple account.

If you've got it installed on multiple computers, then all you need to do is to store your project files on a cloud service like Dropbox and sync both computers to that cloud service. Your projects will then be available from either computer and will automatically update locally when you switch computers.

Micah, thanks. I'm didn't know I could do that. I still can't, because one of the computers is a work computer and I can't add new programs, but it's still nice to know I can put it on multiple computers that I own!

I had some problems with Calibre when I tried to convert a book manuscript from a docx to a mobi. It would not generate a TOC even though I had formatted my chapter headings at the H1 level. My problem, as it turns out, was that my chapters were numbered. Calibre thought I was making a numbered list and ignored the heading levels.

I was able to figure this out only by dissecting the HTML that is generated with a conversion to AZW3 format. If I didn't have a technical background, I'd have banged my head against my desk for a lot longer, and just reading this is probably giving you a headache.

I did report it as a bug. The developers initially dismissed it, but I was persistent, and they finally investigated the problem and purportedly fixed it. I did not wait for the supposed fix; I edited the AZW3 file to insert the appropriate tags to format my chapter headings as headings. I also had a problem with an image going all wonky and fixed that in the same way. If I didn't know HTML pretty well, I'd have been able to do none of this.

I think my problem might have been not using Microsoft Word to construct my manuscript from the get-go. I did it initially in Google Docs so I could work on it anywhere, then converted it to .odt format to get it ready to publish. That was like wrestling with a greased pig. Calibre completely croaked on my .odt document, so I converted it to .docx with LibreOffice to get it into something that almost looked right. I'm just glad I don't have to do this all the time.

Robert, you can work on MS docs anywhere if you have 360 and store them in the cloud. I can work from my computer, phone and tablet. With the subscription, you pay less than you would to buy the program and you get all the latest updates which I love. No more outdated program.

B.A. wrote: "Robert, you can work on MS docs anywhere if you have 360 and store them in the cloud. I can work from my computer, phone and tablet. With the subscription, you pay less than you would to buy the pr..."

And there's the rub. I won't pay for Office 365 as long as there is an open source alternative that costs me $0. I can work on a Google Doc anywhere, even from a public computer. That also costs me $0.

The issue with Google Docs is that the formatting gets trashed when you export it as .odt, .docx, or just about anything else -- so you don't format anything. No italics, no headings, not even page breaks. When you're done with your manuscript, or at least your first draft, you export and then import into your Office app -- or just copy and paste -- and do all the formatting there.

In fact, completing a draft before you do any formatting is a good idea even if you're doing it all in Word or an Office alternative.

Robert,
I get it. Because I do a lot of different writing in a lot of different places, I had to find a program that worked with all my devices. I also needed to be able to have it formated in a copy and paste. To my, the $100 a year is worth it to have seamless use over all my electronics. I store everything in the cloud, so I can access it anywhere, anytime, as long as I have 4G or Wi-Fi. I don't have to pay for text to speech as it comes with Word, I can format it in minutes and almost every one takes .doc or .docx. If you are a professional writer, the cost of the program is a business write-off for your taxes. (I.E. you have to have at least one book published.)