Formatting&tips&
Here are some simple formatting guidelines that I worked out:
At the end of a chapter, insert a page break; this should result in a new page in the Kindle file.
(It did not when I uploaded a Word DOC in 2014, but did when I uploaded an HTML file in
2016). Note: if you plan to sell your own ebooks (see Part 2), it may be important to use heading
styles at the starts of chapters and sections.
At the end of sections, if you don’t want a page break, you can insert centered characters (such
as * * *) in the text.
Between paragraphs, use a single paragraph break (i.e., the return key).
Apply a style to the document to get the paragraphs indented, if you wish; do not use a tab at the
start of each paragraph. However: I tested all the styles and decided I liked “Body Style” best
because it put small spaces between paragraphs instead of indenting, but the final book has small
indents instead, so I’m not sure it makes much difference which style you use.
Do not use multiple spaces or paragraph breaks, as they will be removed.
Insert an image in-line (embedded, not floating) in the text: insert it on its own line (i.e., hit
Return to get to a new line, then insert the image, then hit Return again). You don’t want the
image moving location or text wrapping around the image.
If you want two images side-by-side, create one jpeg with both images in it.
Image captions and in-text descriptions: If you use a caption, it might not stay with the image,
so that the reader will arrive at the image and not have the caption there, until he or she scrolls
down. You could make the caption be part of the jpeg to keep it with the image, but this is not a
great solution as the caption may not be readable by screen readers for the visually impaired. It
might be best to refer to images in the text (e.g., “In the image below, the horse is seen as it eats
oats”). If the reference always comes before the image, readers will always know what the image
is about when they reach it.
My book had one section with about twenty images, each with a caption. When I previewed, I
saw that each image appeared on a new page, with the NEXT caption after it. No matter that
each caption had “in the following image,” it was still confusing. I added a page break after each
image, to bump the unrelated caption to a new page, even though this resulted in a lot of extra
pages.
In general, make sure that your text works, regardless of the e-reader: If the print book text reads
“the image at the right,” it won’t be accurate in the ebook; even if you do allow text wrapping,
the image might no longer be at the right on some e-readers (which is why you should avoid text
wrapping). If you insert images as described above, you can safely use “above” and “below.”
Recipes and tables: I created a jpeg of each recipe and table in my book instead of using tabs or
a Word table to ensure that the recipe or table would look right.