SUMMARY: Smashwords only provides a single input format (ms-doc). It would be nice to support one additional, open standard/documented format.
Quote:
Maybe this isn't the right place to put it ... but I'm going to try anyhow.
Very simply, for a place that promotes eBooks and no-DRM I'm disturbed that the only format they seem to accept when you go to submit your eBook is... Microsoft Word .doc.
* MS Word doc format layouts are unpredictable even within MS Office between versions
* Microsoft promotes a culture of lock-in, MSOffice is one of their biggest levers in this
* Converting manuscripts from beautiful postscript/TeX sources to doc invariably mangles the typesetting and layouts (to be fair, eBooks are the bigger limitation in their rendering engines)
So what do I want from Smashwords... well, how about accepting ePub or ODF (open document format) as a baseline at the very least? While ePub isn't the best it is at least open and available to everyone and can be generated from multiple sources with Calibre.
I'm probably over-reacting but it just seems to me to be a rather unfortunate limitation given the push to open standards.
I agree a lot of people are still using MS Office to generate their manuscripts but for many of us out here using MS Office is never an option for multiple reasons, financially, ethically and professionally ( TeX users will understand ).
Paul.
(PS, will be happy to redact this if someone can show me that it isn't limited to just .doc files  )
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