MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Attentive newbie seeks Sigil -> Kindle advice . . .

NicolaNY · 03-29-2011, 05:36 PM

Greetings everyone.

As a lurker for the past week i would like to thank all the contributing members of mobileread and express my awe at how civil and helpful everyone seems to be.

I stumbled upon mobileread through the mighty google because i am researching how to put my ebooks online. My primary target is amazon because i've happily used the kindle for the past 1.5 years. After learning about all the various formats the task seemed daunting until i read about and started using Sigil (thumbs up Valloric). Having a little experience with html and css i decided to markup my books using Textwrangler to get the basic formatting down. While i am still neck deep in formatting, i was hoping to get some advice from all of you.

1) As stated, the plan is to finish marking up my book in Textwrangle using a .html file that is linked to a separate .css file. Then i plan to open the files in Sigil and add metadata with the handy tool and create a TOC for my book. Next, i plan on saving the file as an .ePub and opening the file in KindlePreviewer. My understanding is that KindlePreviewer will convert the file to a .mobi in order to display is on the kindle. Assuming everything looks as intended, i am done. Does this sound like a good plan or am i asking for trouble? Are there any other workflows people use to create content specifically for kindle?

2) After my .epub file is finished, should i consider converting with Calibre as opposed to KindlePreviewer? Any insight greatly appreciated.

3)I have read that the TOC that Sigil creates does not carry over to Kindle/Kindlepreviewer. Supposedly the work around is to create a separate file with the TOC data and manually place it into the appropriate folder within my .ePub. Is their any tutorial, workaround, or general advice before i give this a shot?

4)If my .css file specifies certain parameters for <h1> tags, will that impede Sigil from creating a proper TOC? Is it just simpler to avoid using <h1> in my html/css?

Any answer/link to my questions would be greatly appreciated. And please feel free to rip my process apart, if there is a better way, i'll gladly thank you forever.

Best,
Nicola

03-29-2011, 05:36 PM	#1
NicolaNY Member Posts: 12 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: New York Device: Kindle	Attentive newbie seeks Sigil -> Kindle advice . . . Greetings everyone. As a lurker for the past week i would like to thank all the contributing members of mobileread and express my awe at how civil and helpful everyone seems to be. I stumbled upon mobileread through the mighty google because i am researching how to put my ebooks online. My primary target is amazon because i've happily used the kindle for the past 1.5 years. After learning about all the various formats the task seemed daunting until i read about and started using Sigil (thumbs up Valloric). Having a little experience with html and css i decided to markup my books using Textwrangler to get the basic formatting down. While i am still neck deep in formatting, i was hoping to get some advice from all of you. 1) As stated, the plan is to finish marking up my book in Textwrangle using a .html file that is linked to a separate .css file. Then i plan to open the files in Sigil and add metadata with the handy tool and create a TOC for my book. Next, i plan on saving the file as an .ePub and opening the file in KindlePreviewer. My understanding is that KindlePreviewer will convert the file to a .mobi in order to display is on the kindle. Assuming everything looks as intended, i am done. Does this sound like a good plan or am i asking for trouble? Are there any other workflows people use to create content specifically for kindle? 2) After my .epub file is finished, should i consider converting with Calibre as opposed to KindlePreviewer? Any insight greatly appreciated. 3)I have read that the TOC that Sigil creates does not carry over to Kindle/Kindlepreviewer. Supposedly the work around is to create a separate file with the TOC data and manually place it into the appropriate folder within my .ePub. Is their any tutorial, workaround, or general advice before i give this a shot? 4)If my .css file specifies certain parameters for <h1> tags, will that impede Sigil from creating a proper TOC? Is it just simpler to avoid using <h1> in my html/css? Any answer/link to my questions would be greatly appreciated. And please feel free to rip my process apart, if there is a better way, i'll gladly thank you forever. Best, Nicola