Update on Word to Kindle?

[Bobsterz]

Hi, I'm new to the forum. I have published six books, but years went by before I did the last one. I'm wondering if I need to get up to date on something. I normally go from Word to HTML (that I clean up, mostly with mass search and replace, but it can become arduous in places) and then to Kindle.

I like the process, because I have exact control, Word faithfully reproduces the external links and TOC, and my use of the outline view and styles result in excellent formatting once I put in my own CSS that uses the styles already created.

But what is the current thinking about going straight from Word to Kindle? Is there a lot of back and forth, getting the look right? I'm getting the impression that things have changed and maybe it's a lot easier nowadays to bypass the HTML.

There's also the matter of file size. The simple HTML I produce gives me the smallest possible file size, but how much of a difference does that amount to these days? Is it worth it?

Thanks for any insights!

P.S. Word's process for creating an index does not work for going into HTML (proper links are not produced), so this made for a lot of extra work, producing the index in HTML after the conversion. It wasn't awful, but it certainly takes longer. That's one more motive for asking about bypassing the HTML.

P.P.S I'd love to hear from folks who take on jobs that involve HTML clean-up and prepping Word files for paperback conversion as well. I need to hire out my upcoming jobs.

[Quoth]

Go Word -> docx -> Calibre (free, all platforms) -> epub2. In Calibre convert epub2 to mobi, dual mobi or azw3. BUT the recommended upload for Amazon KDP is epub2. We only use a Kindle format for Smashwords local sales (dual Mobi). Everything else epub2 (Amazon, Smashwords, Google). Smashwords use the epub2 version to distribute to Apple, Scribd, Kobo, Barnes & Noble etc.

Most of our sales are outside Amazon and none ever on Google PlayStore Books.

But for ebook via docx & PDF export for paper the LO Writer is now better (edit ONLY odt and Save As extra docx for Calibre)

Don't use HTML, especially from Word.

Do use styles no matter what wordprocessor you use.

Used Word from 2.0a to MS Office 2007. Abandoned Word in about 2014.

I don't need to edit CSS or HTML in Calibre as long as my source docx is correctly done.

See @Hitch here for ebook creation services, but if you use styles in LO writer and doing fiction novel it's simple.

IMO if you need more advanced features than epub2 upload to KDP, then you are better with an App for iOS & Android than epub3, but epub3 evangelists would disagree. OTOH I was writing programs inc multimedia and a game engine over 20 years before publishing ebooks.

If you are customising and doing more than an ordinary fiction novel then try Sigil as well as Calibre.

Don't use Indesign, a PDF editor or HTML WYSIWG editors. Print ready PDF export from LO Writer is good. Also you can export a PDF from the Calibre viewer using PDF print option, but LO Writer is better.
No headers or footers and use a small page size for an ebook in Word/Writer and edit a proofed copy for Paper version (different margins, page types, image sizes, headers, footers and edit styles).

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Bobsterz

I normally go from Word to HTML (that I clean up, mostly with mass search and replace, but it can become arduous in places) and then to Kindle.

I like the process, because I have exact control, Word faithfully reproduces the external links and TOC, and my use of the outline view and styles result in excellent formatting once I put in my own CSS that uses the styles already created.

Great. Sounds like you're already 95%+ there.

Styles, and learning how to use them properly, is the #1 important step for designing clean documents.

I wrote about Styles + Word (or LibreOffice)->EPUB in detail last year in:

"eBook Formatting in Sigil" (Posts #46, #50, but especially #52+#60 where I discuss the DOCX->EPUB tools).

Originally Posted by Bobsterz

But what is the current thinking about going straight from Word to Kindle? Is there a lot of back and forth, getting the look right? I'm getting the impression that things have changed and maybe it's a lot easier nowadays to bypass the HTML.

No. I would still go:

• DOCX->EPUB (or DOCX->HTML->EPUB)
• then EPUB->Kindle

EPUB gives you full control over the final ebook file.

Feeding DOCX into Kindle Previewer, then generating a Kindle file out of that... who knows what crap/cruft would get carried along + not get converted properly:

• auto-numbered lists
• lists-that-don't-start-at-1
• footnotes/endnotes
• poems/lyrics
• blockquotes
• metadata
• [...]

The more complicated your book, the more chance of things going wrong.

And you'll always have to dig in there and do HTML/EPUB tweaks, because physical book ≠ ebook.

Originally Posted by Bobsterz

P.S. Word's process for creating an index does not work for going into HTML (proper links are not produced), so this made for a lot of extra work, producing the index in HTML after the conversion. It wasn't awful, but it certainly takes longer. That's one more motive for asking about bypassing the HTML.

Indexes... and trying to link Indexes...

No.

As you found out, Word does not export the proper index code to HTML.

The only tool I've found, which carries over Word Indexes to HTML, is Calibre. (Although I haven't messed with that functionality in a while.) But that has the enormous disadvantage of renumbering every entry 1->n in the order they appear.

So if you had:

cats, 100, 101
dogs, 99, 100
elephants, 50, 101

you'd get a whole mismmash:

cats, [1], [2]
dogs, [3], [1]
elephants, [4], [2]

What you'd have to do is manually recreate "Real Page Numbers" (RPNs), output the Index as plaintext, then manually regex the Index back together. A lot of that was written about in:

2020: "Create index on epub from printed book"
2020: "How to export indexes from indesign to epub"

And search for this in your favorite search engine:

"Real Page Numbers" tex2002ans site:mobileread.com

(Over the years, I've also written a ton about Indexes + Indexes in Ebooks... but I tend to stay ten thousand feet away from linking them. The usefulness in ebooks is debatable, because "a page" in a physical book ≠ "a screen" in an ebook [the linked info may be 1–4+ screens away].)

Originally Posted by Bobsterz

P.P.S I'd love to hear from folks who take on jobs that involve HTML clean-up and prepping Word files for paperback conversion as well. I need to hire out my upcoming jobs.

Sure. Like Quoth said, there's:

• Hitch, who runs the fantastic booknook.biz

... and then me (I've done 600+ ebooks, mostly Non-Fiction).

Not too sure of any other MobileRead users who do it professionally at that skill level.

[Notjohn]

I switched from html and zip files to epub2 built by Sigil in 2012 and have never looked back.It's now virtually a WYSIWYG software, with any changes to Code View (the html) immediately reflecting in the Preview panel.