Word Doc conversion

[masmith22]

Hello, I am missing something, having a hard time converting a Word doc to the Smashword format. Went from docx to doc. I removed tabs, returns, page breaks, etc.

[Ted]

What reason(s) were you given by Smashwords for your book failing to convert?

[masmith22]

I received the "AutoVetter", "Too Many Consecutive Paragraph Returns" and "Missing indents or block paragraphs" error messages. I went through each page and removed the indent for each paragraph and even counted the "returns". I started with the print format word docx file. I do not want to have to convert to a plain text file. I would like to learn the process to format the word doc file. I have 6 total books to publish. Thanks,

[Ted]

For my ebooks I make sure there is only one 'return' between paragraphs, and I use the block format so there are no indents. I always check the end of paragraphs to ensure there is no space between the period and the Paragraph Mark.

Re-reading the Smashwords Style Guide is probably the best thing you can do before starting on your 6 books.

[masmith22]

Thanks reading again, some of the new chapter titles end at the bottom of pages, I used a page break to start at the beginning of the next page. I did not want the title only at the bottom of a page.

[tangomike]

masmith22: Just to make sure you understand this, what you see in the Word document in terms of where the chapter titles are in relation to the end of the page and the text that follows has no relationship to how it will appear in an eBook format. The ability of the reader to change font sizes makes that irrelevant.

The only one way to ensure that a title is not left as an orphan is to include a page break before every chapter heading. You have to force them to appear on a new page. You can do that manually, but in my experience a better way is to define the Heading 1 style so that it includes the "page break before" option. This also ensures that when your book is converted to other than ebook formats, the text is not running continuously and has an easily distinguishable break between chapters.

You seem to indicate that you removed the first line paragraph indents because they may have been a cause of Autovetter errors, and can't imagine that to be the case. You can format your book in either the first-line-indent or block paragraph method. It may be that if you used both, the Autovetter didn't like that, but that's just a guess.

The Smashwords style guide says never to use more than four consecutive paragraph returns to provide spacing between text elements. In my experience, using extra returns can cause spacing problems, and it's much better tactic to define spacing with style definitions.

[Julie Harris]

A previous blog entry was written to help with formatting issues. It's about the use of styles for Smashwords conversions. I've been doing it this way for a long time now and use Word 10, always in Compatibility Mode (aka 2003).

jules57.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/formatting-issues.html

By modifying the Normal style, you get auto indents which is what you need for novels with dialogue.

There's also a style to use as a sequence divider (instead of multiple returns/enters). This style comes in handy for the cover page as well.

It also helps to create a chapter heading style which has a page break before: unless the Smashwords style guide has changed, they don't advise using Word Heading 1 or 2 etc. (KDP is fine with Heading styles)

If you are using a Word program that is not Word 10, the Help button will teach you how to create new styles. It's not that hard.

Once you've created your styles (which also work for KDP except for chapter heading) keep a blank document as a 'template': I call mine smashwords.doc. Just remember to open it up, and 'save as' immediately with new title, thereby leaving the 'master' blank.

If you use these styles you can then paint your tab button red. Tabs are the enemy of ebooks.

Hope this helps.

Julie.