Mobi Creator, Word HTML, and TOC

[schmoe]

Hello. Publishing -- rather, attempting to publish -- my first work. Per instructions, I've composed it in Word, saved it as HTML, and am now attempting to tweak it with a table of contents, and maybe some other "guide" thingies.

But the instructions absolutely suck. And I've perused this board for insights on the TOC, and not found any meaningful answer. I'm not an HTML expert, but I think I know what a tag is. But can't seem to filter anything successfully in the TOC Wizard. So...

I open the HTML file in a source editor, and I see the tags -- and there's a boatload of crap in there as well -- and tell the Wizard to flag this tag, for example:

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><span
style='font-size:14.0pt'>Chapter 1</span></p>

...and as input to the Wizard I enter: Tag Name: span; Attribute: style; value: 'font-size:14.0pt', and variations thereupon, with no resulting success.

My questions: Am I screwing up the nomenclature? Also, the TOC Wizard creates a separate TOC HTML file. I have no specific Contents page in my main document, because, well, that's what the HTML filters are for, right?

And what about guides? How on earth do you enable the "search" feature for your book? What/where are the "script" files that you're supposed to refer to in the Guide wizard?

Thanks in advance.

[DMSmillie]

Hi schmoe, and welcome to MobileRead.

Your post covers several different issues, so I'll go through them individually.

Originally Posted by schmoe

I open the HTML file in a source editor, and I see the tags -- and there's a boatload of crap in there as well -- and tell the Wizard to flag this tag, for example:

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><span
style='font-size:14.0pt'>Chapter 1</span></p>

...and as input to the Wizard I enter: Tag Name: span; Attribute: style; value: 'font-size:14.0pt', and variations thereupon, with no resulting success. My questions: Am I screwing up the nomenclature?

OK... you go on to say that the TOC Wizard creates a separate TOC HTML file, so it clearly does something. We'd need to know in a bit more detail what you define as "no resulting success" in order to give more accurate advice on this specific question.

For now, though, and as a general piece of advice in creating a book in Word (whether you intend to self-publish it in print, or as an ebook, or both), I'd strongly recommend using Word's heading styles for section and chapter headings, and sub-headings within chapters. You might, for example, use Heading 1 for the book title, Heading 2 for section titles and Heading 3 for chapter titles. But that's just an example. The main thing is to use heading styles consistently for each level of headings in your book.

When you save the Word doc as HTML, these heading styles will be translated into the HTML heading tags H1, H2, H3, etc. Then, when you want to use something like the TOC Wizard in Mobipocket Creator, you can simply specify the appropriate HTML heading tags for the content of your Table of Contents. So, for example, if you use Heading 2 for section headings and Heading 3 for chapter headings, and want both of those levels to be included in your Table of Contents, you would simply specify the HTML tag H2 for the top level TOC entries, and HTML tag H3 for second level TOC entries.

Using styles in MS Word also makes it a lot quicker and easier if you decide you want to change the formatting of your headings - instead of having to go through the whole book changing the formatting for each heading, you simply change the formatting for the style you used for those headings, and hey presto! they all get changed instantly. The formatting you set up for each of these styles will follow through into the HTML, so that the formatting is maintained.

Originally Posted by schmoe

Also, the TOC Wizard creates a separate TOC HTML file. I have no specific Contents page in my main document, because, well, that's what the HTML filters are for, right?

The fact that it's in a separate HTML file isn't an issue in itself. However I can't remember where Mobipocket Creator puts that TOC in terms of paging through the ebook. Another option for creating your Table of Contents, though, is to use Word's own Table of Contents feature, where you specify which heading levels you want included, and Word will create the Table of Contents from those headings, at the place in the book where you want it to appear. If you decide to follow this route, add a bookmark named "toc" (can be anything you want, but easier to stick with a bookmark name that relates to its function) to the heading on your Table of Contents page. This will enable you to add a "Guide" entry in the ebook for the location of your TOC (dealt with below).

Originally Posted by schmoe

And what about guides? How on earth do you enable the "search" feature for your book? What/where are the "script" files that you're supposed to refer to in the Guide wizard?

The "Guide" items relate to the e-reader's "Go To..." menu and functionality. They specify the location, within the ebook, of specific book elements, such as the cover image, the inline table of contents, the "start reading here" point, etc.

You don't need to do anything to enable the search feature for your ebook - that functionality is part of the reader, and as long as your ebook consists of text and not just images of text, it will be searchable by the user.

The reference to script files in the Guide wizard is only relevant if you've written a Javascript function that you want to kick in if the user selects that particular entry in the e-reader's "Go To..." menu. It's not a reference to a library of scripts within Mobipocket Creator. Basically, for 99.999% of ebooks, ignore the scripts box. I'm not even sure that the Kindle supports that functionality (Mobipocket Reader has some support for Javascript, but I believe the Kindle ignores Javascript).

There are only three Guide items that are currently worth adding to an ebook intended solely or primarily for sale on Amazon:

• cover image - where you can specify the image file that contains the cover image;
• "start" location - if, for example, you want to identify the start of chapter one as the "start" point, you would add a bookmark named "start" or "text" to the chapter one heading in Word, and then you can specify that location (filename.html#bookmark_name) in the HTML file for the "start" guide item;
• "toc" location - if you used the Mobipocket Creator TOC wizard, there will already be a "toc" guide item set up; if you created your own TOC within Word, and added the "toc" bookmark mentioned above, you can set up a "toc" guide item with that file location (filename.html#toc).

Hope that all helps a bit.