Worthy reader,
I wrote last week in my post anouncing the creation of my eBook that I was tempted to put together a tutorial of how you can make your own, after some thought I have decided to go through with that plan and hope that you find the following tutorial on the basics of how to make an ebook as informative as I intend it to be. It has been a little while since I wrote any tutorials, and this is the first tutorial I’ve written for this blog, so it may be corrected and improved at later dates, feel free to post criticisms/questions. (Criticisms may be deleted or mocked depending on my mood and which way round my delete/mock spinner is.)
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Contents
1.1: Requirements/Resources
1.2: Creating a New eBook
– 1.2.1: Creating the file
– 1.2.2: Adding a title, author, and file information to your new ebook
1.3: The Cover Image and Other Images
– 1.3.1: What is a cover image?
– 1.3.2: Importing an image
– 1.3.3: Inserting/Deleting an image
– 1.3.4: Setting the Cover Image
1.4: Adding Text
1.5: Adding Chapters
1.6: Adding a Contents Page
– 1.6.1: Headers
– 1.6.2: Generating a Contents Page
1.7: Openning the File in an eReader
1.8: Final Notes
– 1.8.1: Program Overview
– 1.8.2: Bibliography
– 1.8.3: Good luck and Have Fun!
1.9: FAQ
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1.1: Requirements/Resources
The program I will be using for this tutorial is called Sigil, different versions of which are available at http://code.google.com/p/sigil/downloads/list. I have not experimented outside of Windows, but there is a Mac version as well as a link to compile a version for Linux users.
So, for this tutorial I would advise:
– Sigil downloaded and installed from the link above
– Your book or text to create an eBook from
– A cover image* to display your book on an eReader before it is openned
*See 1.3.1
1.2: Creating a New eBook
1.2.1: Creating the File
If you haven’t already, load up Sigil. Along the top there is a menu bar with File, Edit, View, &c. running along it, go onto the File drop down, hover over New… and then press New Book (this can also be achieved by pressing Ctrl-n).
You should now have a screen similar to this:
Along the top you have your menu bar with File, Edit, &c. along it, below that a few menu bars of buttons to do the most common procedures such as add images, chapters, &c. Below these are three panels arranged next to each other; a left hand one for managing files within your eBook (such as images), the central panel which is basically how your eBook will look, and a right hand panel for managing the contents page. Right at the bottom of the program is a managing errors and validation, which will be explained in a later tutorial.
1.2.2: Adding a title, author, and file information to your new ebook
To add file details such as the title, author, copyright data, and other details, go onto the Edit drop down menu and click on Meta Editor… (Alternatively press F8), this will open up the following window:
If you cannot see the bottom box then press the More button to the right of the Language drop down menu.
Now you can enter the title of the eBook and your name/the author’s name. There are a number of other details you can add such as copyright information, this can be done by pressing either Add Basic or Add Adv. and browsing through the options listed therein.
1.3: The Cover Image and Other Images
1.3.1: What is a cover image?
A cover image, simply, is the image that appears on the cover of your book before the reader opens it, for example, the books shown in the following screenshot are the cover images of books which can be pressed to open them.
Cover images should be no more than 590×750 pixels, or you can download a template from here. Now go and design an amazing cover image if you don’t have one already, yes it has to be amazing, the program will only accept cover images of 85%+ amazingness or 70%+ awesomeness. No exceptions*.
*There are exceptions.
1.3.2: Importing an image
Before you can use an image in your eBook you have to import it, do this by going onto the File Menu, then New and pick Add Existing File(s)…
This will import the image into the eBook files, making it available to insert, do this with any images you want to include in your eBook.
1.3.3: Inserting/Deleting an Image
Now you have your image available in the eBook files you want to know how to insert it, simply select where you want it to be in the central white box (Where you may have already found out you can type), if you are not sure what this is it should have a tab over it called Section0001.xtml or something like that. Now go onto the Edit menu on the menu bar along the top and press Insert Image…, alternatively you can press Ctrl-Shift-I.
A window will appear asking you to pick an image to insert, there should be a list of images that you have imported, browse through this until you find the image that you want and press OK. If an error message appears try adding the file into the program again, note: unusual image types may not be accepted, if you are having difficulty try changing the image to jpg and try importing it in that format.
The image should now have appeared in the central window.
1.3.4: Setting the Cover Image
You may want to have a cover image for your book (this is recommended as it will make your book seem more proffessional as well as interesting), there are two ways of doing this, the first is simply to make sure that it is the first thing that you insert into your book – this will usually mean that the program by default sets it as the cover image. The second way, as well as a useful way to make sure the program has set it as the cover image anyway, is by expanding the images folder in the left hand folder explorer by pressing the arrow (shown in the following image glowing blue).
Now find the image file that you want as the cover image, right click its name, and under Add Semantics make sure that the Cover Image option has a tick next to it, if it does not then just click the words Cover Image to enable it.
1.4: Adding Text
Text can be added simply by clicking in the central box (if you are unsure which one this is then it is the one that has the image in it), this is basically a preview of what your eBook will look like and so the text you type in that box will be the text that appears in the eBook, although different eReaders may apply different fonts or change the size.
One useful note is that you can copy and paste text from word or similar programs into this window if you are trying to convert a word document into an eBook.
1.5: Adding Chapters
Chapters are a very useful way to simply break up your eBook for easier editting; it basically does what it’s called – a new chapter is simply a new section of your eBook. You can add a new chapter by clicking the position in your text where you want the chapter to begin, then going onto Edit and pressing Split Chapter (alternatively you can press Ctrl-Enter).
This will have added a new ‘chapter’ into your book and will appear as Section0002.xhtml or something similar, to move between chapters you can simply click the different tabs titled with the different section names.
1.6: Adding a Contents Page
Contents pages in eReaders are just lists of links to different sections of the book, creating these lists only take a few steps and make the eBook much more accessible, however, they are not necessary for an eBook.
1.6.1: Headers
To create different sections that can be put into your Contents Page you first need to tell the program where these sections begin, in Sigil this is done through ‘Headers’. First, find the place in your eBook where you want a chapter to begin, then write the name of the chapter as you would if you were simply writing it there for a person to read.
Now, select the text and click on the little drop down menu called either <Select heading> or <Normal>, this is directly above the left hand panel with the list of different folders, from here pick one of the Heading options and you should see the text change.
Note: I have had trouble changing the first line of a new section into a heading style, if the text is not changing at all when you select a heading style then try adding an empty line before the text and then changing its style.
1.6.2: Generating a Contents Page
You are now ready to generate a contents page for your eBook, on the right hand side there is a panel with the title Table of Contents over it, and probably a label called Start listed in it, at the bottom of this is a button called Generate TOC from headings, press it.
This will open up a window with a list of all text within the document that has been given a Heading style, check the boxes with the headings that you want to include in your contents page, uncheck any that you simply want as bolder text. Press OK to make all the checked items in the list appear on the contents page.
1.7: Openning the File in an eReader
You now should have something that resembles an eBook, make sure that you have it saved somewhere. You can now add it to any eReader as you would any other eBook file. I will include below a short explanation of how to add it to an iPhone, iPod, or iPad eReader, since these are the readers I am familiar with.
First open up iTunes and go onto File -> Add File to Library, and browse for your eBook.
Once you have found the file, double click on it to add it to your iTunes library, you can now sinc your device with iTunes (checking that sincing eBooks is enabled on the device) and your book will be available to read. Enjoy!
1.8: Final Notes
1.8.1: Program Overview
Overall, this program seems to be an effective and well designed tool for creating proffesional looking eBooks, I would recommend looking into more advanced uses of it once you are familiar with the basics, a tutorial on which I plan to produce at a later date.
1.8.2: Bibliography
http://code.google.com/p/sigil/wiki/BasicTutorial – out of date but still very very helpful.
1.8.3: Good luck and Have Fun!
Good luck and have fun.
1.9: FAQ
Post your questions in the comments, if it’s sensible the answer will be here, if it’s not here’s a picture of a lamb.