Page size, page breaks, and so on....

[ham]

Just joined the Forum and tried to find answers in older posts. I've found the answer to page breaks which amounts to h--- if you do and h--- if you don't use them. Right now I think I'll skip them and try for the Premium Catalog.

I've formatted my book from my printed book Word doc, a lot of work and changes so far, but I have the page size at 6" X 9". The Style Guide does not actually say I need 8.5" X 11" or A4 size but it doesn't say I can use my 6X9.

Smash says that all readers are different and the text will appear different according to the users choices. At 6X9 my book looks good, at the larger sizes everything looks crammed onto one page and as wide as the US of A. If I do happen to sell a copy I assume, and you know what that means, that it will all be squeezed into a narrow screen page and might look better even though on some readers only a part of a page will be visible.

I guess that's a lot of blather just to ask if I should submit a 6X9 or a 8.5X11.

Guess it's time to say Guid Nicht,

Ham

[Julie Harris]

Forget formatting as if it's for print, Ham, or you prefer the look of a 6 x 9 on your PC screen.
You're aiming to create a product that suits a multitude of ereading devices and gives a continuous flow of text.
Please read the style guide for appropriate margins and page set up, line spacing and default font size. Only use a page break for a new chapter - best way is to create a dedicated style containing a page break.
Previously on this forum, I've put a link to a blank word doc, set up with minimal styles for Smashwords. It has never failed me.
Best of luck.
Julie.

[ham]

Thank you jules57. I see what you are saying, but I still struggle with the ambiguity of the Smash Style Guide where it says definitely do not use page breaks but if you want so and so to sell your book you need a couple of page breaks. I think I will use a break where I want one and try it.
Ham

[Ted]

Jul 4, 2012 18:32:38 GMT -8 ham said:

Thank you jules57. I see what you are saying, but I still struggle with the ambiguity of the Smash Style Guide where it says definitely do not use page breaks but if you want so and so to sell your book you need a couple of page breaks. I think I will use a break where I want one and try it.
Ham

Hi Ham, and welcome to our forum. According to the Style Guide: "If you insert page breaks into your Word document (Insert: Break: [choose one]), the PDF and .RTF versions will honor them, but these commands will be lost in most other formats, which strip page breaks and section breaks. Loss of page breaks is okay in an ebook, because you can’t predict the font size or screen size the reader is using, and you want to have continuous reflowable text anyway. The worst thing that will happen is paragraphs may become artificially close or too separated."

My understanding of kindle ebooks is their mobi format will honor page breaks if they are present in the body.

Neither PDF or rtf are major formats at most retailers as they choose to use and promote the industry standard ePub format. Only Amazon uses the mobi format and Smashwords doesn't distribute to them.

Don't forget that what looks great in your MSWord document with page breaks may end up all screwy on someone's ereader, tablet, laptop or desktop, when he/she chooses a different font or font size or page size.

[ham]

Thank you Ted,

I read several of your other posts and you seem to be full of good info. I basically understand most of the formatting issues but am still conflicted about the page breaks and page sizes. I didn't want to make things too messy at Smashwords so I went over my Word doc many times getting it just right. I uploaded it for publication and it passed the automatic scrutiny and went to the human side which I understand takes a bit of time. Meanwhile I downloaded the epub, PDF, and web view versions and was appalled at the mess I had created. Only the PDF looked good. The rest look like the fonts, formatting and who knows what else all had minds of their own. I am close to dumping the whole project and going elsewhere but fear that all the mess is caused by hidden codes that I cannot see or remove from my Word doc.

Again, thanks for your input,

Ham

[Ted]

Ham, stick with it. You aren't the only author coming from a print background to the wonderful world of ebooks and discovering what looks great in print or PDF can look messed up in ereaders.

The web views are not the best for how a book will look in an ereader. Check your epub in Calibre, or if you have Firefox, get the epub viewer addon.

ePub is used by most ereaders, except Kindle. Although I heard their Kindle Fire has an app for reading ePubs.

Sometimes it is best to go with simple formatting at first. You can always update the ebook to a more advanced formatting style once you are used to how everyone works.

I use Arial 12 point for everything, block style formatting, with a bit of bold here and there in Chapter headings (Centered), no blank lines between Chapters, no indents.

Search the forum using the word Template, as jules57 made one available for us. It may offer some help for you.

You can try using the Amazon KDP process, but their formatting isn't that much different than Smashwords so if your ebook looks weird in mobi format from Smashwords it could look weird in mobi format from Amazon.

I haven't seen any difference between Smashwords and Amazon mobi display, but some readers swear there is a difference.

[ham]

Thanks again Ted,

After I see what the Premium Review comes up with I will try again, and again, and again.

Ham

[thomasboyd43]

At the risk of exposing my ignorance, what is this "block style" thing I see mentioned from time to time?

Thanks!
Tom

[Ted]

All text aligned at left margin.

[bobinma]

Just to be clear, it isn't the ePub format that doesn't allow page breaks, it's Smashword's conversion engine that doesn't. For my own ePub version, I use Calibre and can tell it to recognize page breaks based on any code I want.

And this passes epubcheck fine.

In fact, Smashwords creates page breaks for chapter headings. If they were to use Calibre for the conversion engine, the process would probably be a lot more flexible.

I'm not complaining, I think the service is great. But it just isn't true that you can't create page breaks in an ePub.

[Ted]

Bobinma, Smashwords uses Calibre and always has. When you check the converted code - try Sigil - you'll see the word Calibre in Smashwords output.