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Category Archives: Tutorials

A One-Eyed French Egyptian Omelette

21 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by Gargleyark in Things that happened, Tutorials

≈ Leave a comment

Trusty Reader,

I mentioned the other day to a friend about needing to cook up my hangover cure, apparently they hadn’t heard me mention it before, so it’s unlikely I’ve blogged about it either. I’ll do that now then.

I am a tad hungover right now, and one of these has just given the strength to tap together this post.

Enjoy.

What you’ll need

Ingredients

  • 2 Large or 3 Medium Eggs
  • Sliced Bread, there’s no point spending time slicing bread when you’re hung over
  • Cooking Oil
  • I guess some salt and pepper if you really have time for seasoning

Kitchen things

  • Frying Pan
  • Pretty big bowl
  • Spatula
  • Fork or Whisk

What you need to do

  1. Give this recipe to someone less hungover
  2. Break one egg into the bowl and beat it
  3. Cut a hole in the middle of one slice of bread
  4. Soak one side of the slice in the egg
  5. Heat up some oil in the frying pan
  6. Once hot, drop the bread egg-side down into the pan
  7. Immediately break the second egg over the top of the slice in the pan, with the yolk in the hole
  8. Let it fry for sixty seconds or so, then flip it carefully over and briefly fry the egg.
  9. Soak one side of the second slice of bread in the egg
  10. Flip the bread in the pan again so the side with the fried egg is back on top, and lay the second slice of bread (eggy side up) on top.
  11. The pan probably needs a bit more oil in it by this point
  12. Now flip the sandwich over and fry the raw egg side for a minute or so.
  13. Break the third egg into the bowl and whisk it, then pour it over the top of the sandwich and cook it into a omelette around it, you may need to flip the sandwich again to cook the omeletted top.
  14. Put on a plate, add ketchup.

Also cures pretty much anything else that could be wrong with you.

Adieu, Dear Reader!

A Basic Amazon Publishing Guide: Go Make an eBook

31 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by Gargleyark in Technology, Things that happened, Tutorials

≈ Leave a comment

Inexpectant Reader,

Having now made enough money out of my Danbury Place eBook to afford a meal at Spoons, in my attempt to advocate that everyone in the world should really do this, surely there’s no point just writing something and leaving it doing nothing I would like to write a short tutorial on how to publish an eBook for sale on Amazon in just a few minutes. This certainly isn’t up to the standard of any of my previous tutorials, mainly due to the very little time I have to myself right now, for each bit that’s wrong you may yell at me.

Hopefully, if you’ve used the internet any time in the last decade, you should have an Amazon account. This is pretty essential I’m afraid. If you don’t have one, go make one, it’s free. Make sure you’ve got a card linked up to it as well or you’ll probably struggle to get money from your ebook into your bank account*.

Next, make your way to kdp.amazon.com, where you’ll be able to publish your ebook to the world in just a few clicks.

Log in with your amazon account, and you’ll find yourself on the helpfully named ‘dashboard’ page. Don’t be fooled, you’re not in a car, this is where you can begin uploading your ebooks. Press the ‘Add new title’ button on the left side of the page.

This’ll load a lovely long page of input boxes, fill them each out with the relevant information. Enroll in KDP select if your book or any of its contents are nowhere else on the internet, I’ve never done this since I like putting odd bits on here…

Make sure you’ve pressed Add Contributors and added yourself as author, editor, firefighter, or whatever else your roll was in the production of the ebook. If it’s your work, tick the ‘It’s not public domain’ box, if it’s public domain then it must be significantly different to other versions of the work on the internet, or the only ebook copy of that public domain work.

Remember, for your own work you get 70% of all sale revenue, for public domain work ebooks you’ll only get 35%.

Upload a cover if you have one, otherwise their cover creator is actually very good, and I’ve used it for both of my ebooks.

Finally, upload your ebook file to Amazon, they’ll then convert it to their own ebook format so that anyone can read it. They accept Word, HTML, Zip, mobi, ePub, RTF, TXT, and PDF files, so no, you can’t upload your ebook as a series of unrelated GIF files and a live hamster.

Now press Save and Continue, and Amazon will take you to the pricing options for your eBook.

Tick worldwide rights, unless your ebook breaches any copyright laws of different countries or world powers – if it does, blimey. Next there’s 70% or 35% royalty tick boxes, if your work is public domain then 35% should be ticked, otherwise tick 70%.

Finally, there is a tickbox at the bottom of the page that you have to tick to confirm that you’ve done everything legally and you’re not trying to smuggle space fuel to Gibraltar. Tick this (unless you are really smuggling space fuel to Gibraltar, in which case, why are you wasting your time publishing an eBook?), and press Save and Publish.

There you go, now your eBook will be reviewed by those lovely people at Amazon, or maybe a computer program that crawls over it to make sure you’re not giving advice on space fuel smuggling and other illicit activities. In a few hours you’ll be able to fill your blog with all sorts of annoying BUY THIS NOW PLZ sentences.

BUY THIS NOW PLZ http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00HNU90TM OMG ALSO THIS http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00HJZVV7A

Works well as an advertising strategy, doesn’t it? Also hastily written Amazon ePublishing tutorials are a great way to get away with writing BUY THIS NOW PLZ in a post where it would otherwise be out of place, and a little annoying.

To start earning money, you’ll have to click on the ‘So-and-so’s-name Account’ link at the top of the page, where you can complete your tax information and change it so that Amazon make all payments directly into your bank account. By default, since this is the late sixteenth century, they send you a cheque.

*This statement excludes wizards

How to Paper Restoration

14 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by Gargleyark in Bookbinding, Things that happened, Tutorials

≈ Leave a comment

Discerning Reader,

Some weeks ago now I was restoring a copy of Burnet’s Abridged Reformation of the Church of England – a first edition from 1682. The book was in its original leather boards, and had been repaired with a new spine some time in the 19th century. Sadly, the victorian spine had at some point come away from the binding and been lost, leaving only a piece of victorian backing paper hanging onto the exposed bound together page edges.

In the process of adding another replacement spine, I removed the old paper and discovered behind it a piece of original binding material – an account book page that had been used as scrap in 1682. I would be very inclined to do a rather rickety and speculative post on whether the book belonged to the original bookseller or printer and was used as scrap by a bookbinder in his shop – which would make it possibly one of the only manuscript remains of the remarkable bookseller Richard Chiswell – but that is a story for a better researched post.

For now, allow me to offer a practical guide on how to restore torn and damaged paper, as I myself go through the process of restoring this ancient remnant.

Firstly, you’ll want yourself some kind of water soluable glue. A variant of a flour and water paste works well, otherwise (and I advise you to practice on scrap paper before attempting anything important) you could try ready-made bookbinding glue such as Pinflair, or even (if you really, really, insist) use a basic PVA glue.

Secondly, you’ll want water.

Thirdly, you’ll want some Japanese tissue paper – as it is often called – there are several forms of it. It’s basically just a very thin paper with long fibres in it which allow it to mesh into papers that it is laid onto.

Also get two pots, a large and a small brush with soft bristles, two flat surfaces that your glue won’t stick to (I’m using two perspex boards), a weight (I’m using my polishing stone that I use for bookbinding), a knife, and some blotting paper.

Oh look, a rock.

Oh look, a rock.

To begin with, aside from being very fragile and broken in to several pieces, the paper was screwed up and folded, so it needed to be flattened.

Here's what I started with

Here’s what I started with

Flattening paper is not too difficult, firstly get one of your flat surfaces and make sure it is clean. Now, using a brush, soak both sides of the paper evenly and lay it in the surface, placing your other flat surface and a weight on top.

Some wet paper.

Some wet paper.

This’ll hold the paper flat so that it doesn’t cockle or become misshapen because of the water. After a few minutes, take the weight and surface off of the paper, put it in between two sheets of the blotting paper, replace the flat surface and the weight, and leave it. The paper can take several hours to dry even on a hot day, and it is vital to make sure it is completely dry when you remove it or it will become deformed. (It has taken me 48 hours before now to flatten a quarto-size title page.)

IMG_0043

The paper once it had been flattened and allowed to dry.

The paper once it had been flattened and allowed to dry.

Now to fix the bits of paper together. This will involve laying the Japanese tissue paper over the joins, and will therefore obscure any markings on the paper around the join, so pick a side of the paper that is the plainest, where the tissue paper can be laid with the least effect on the content of the page.

IMG_0051

As in the above image, tear a small piece of tissue paper off that will cover whatever gap or tear you are repairing. Make sure that the paper has torn edges all the way around.

Now mix a little glue with some warm water, mix it until it resembles milk – white, but as runny as water.

Paste this onto one side of the tissue paper, do not soak the tissue paper or you are liable to cause damp staining if the flattening did not entirely clean the surface of the paper. If the tissue paper is fragile to pick up then it is too wet.

Now place the tissue paper wet-side down over the tear in the paper, and paste a small amount of the glue-water mixture over the top of it. Again, don’t soak it, just make sure that the tissue paper is entirely pasted down and completely damp.

IMG_0052

To avoid the paper cockling or deforming because of the moisture, put it between the two surfaces with the weight on top. Do not put any blotting paper in there or it will stick to it. So long as the environment it’s in is warm (why I’m doing this in the summer), the paper shouldn’t take long to dry.

Repeat this on all tears until the paper is restored to a complete state.

IMG_0053

Finished! Just a shame about the 19th century mold spots across the bottom half of the scrap.

Creating an App with Google App Engine and PHP: Tutorial 2; Google SQL Cloud

11 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by Gargleyark in Technology, Tutorials

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

app programming, google app engine, mobile development, php, sql

Kind Reader,

It has taken me far too long to produce what is a second and even more brief overview of the functionality of GAE; particularly in this case the Google Cloud SQL and connection to it. Though I hope it is useful, I apologise for it not being anywhere near the quality of my previous tutorial, and I shall no doubt revise it as and when I have time.

_________________________________________________________________

Contents
1.1: Requirements/Resources

1.2: Setting up the Database
– 1.2.1: Setting up the Cloud SQL Access Point
– 1.2.2: Creating the Database
– 1.2.3: Getting Data from the Cloud

1.3: Final Notes
– 1.5.1: Program Overview
– 1.5.3: Good luck and Have Fun!

_________________________________________________________________

1.1: Requirements/Resources

(If you have followed the previous tutorial you’ll know this bit.)This app is being developed in Google App Engine 1.8.5, available here. It requires Python to be installed on your computer, at this time version 2.7 seems to be the most stable with the app engine so that’s what I’m using. If you don’t have it, it’s around about here.

1.2: Setting up the Database
1.2.1: Setting up the Cloud SQL Access Point

First, go to https://cloud.google.com/console and log in, this is the Google Cloud console and from there you can set up an SQL project to connect your app to.

Click the red button near the top that says Create Project and enter a project name and ID to create your app’s very own space on the Google Cloud.

b_1

On the left hand side there’s a menu, the third option from the bottom is called Cloud SQL, click it to set up the SQL Instance – basically the connection settings for using SQL from your app.

Now click the red button at the top labelled New Instance.

Here you create the instance – basically rent space on the Google Cloud – useful, but sadly not free. Fill in each of the boxes; enter an Instance ID, Region (this is the physical location of the Google servers you want to use, not your location), then select billing options and add any authorization specifics.

At the bottom make sure that your Google app engine project is listed under Authorized App Engine Applications.

1.2.2: Creating the Database

Now go into the menu option on the left called Cloud Datastore and click the red button at the top called Create Entity. Give it a ‘Kind’, which basically seems to be the database name(?). Then you have a drop down called Key, and you can either have this as ID, in which case its name will be a randomly assigned number, or you can change that to Name, and give the Key a name yourself. Keys, as far as I can tell, are much like tables, for the purposes of my database I will make a table called Players, who will have a name and a score.

You add the fields of the table, in my case name and score, at the bottom of the form where there is a blank text box followed by ‘a string’ or whatever, then indexed or not by blank. Not the best way to lay it out, perhaps.

Anyway, the first blank box to the left of ‘a string’ is the name of the field; my first one is called name. You can then change the ‘a string’ drop down to whatever is the applicable variable type – in my case I keep it as ‘a string’ since it is just text. If you want to index your data you can. To add more fields, simply press the plus symbol at the end of each field.

b_2Sometimes there seems to be a problem saving fields, if this happens then try changing the variable type. Once you’re done, just press the blue Create Entity button at the bottom of the form.

1.2.3: Getting Data from the Cloud

You can connect to your database using PDO, MySQL, and MySQLi; being most comfortable with MySQL, I’m going to quickly explain how to implement the connection in your app in that language, but Google explain all of the options fairly well here.

Go into your PHP app file, if you’re following on from my last tutorial then in the main.php that we created earlier, somewhere in <?php ?> tags add SQL code similar to mine that selects whatever SQL Instance/Database fields you’ve set.

$db_connect = mysql_connect(":/cloudsql/mikesbrandnewapp:sqlinstance", "<google username>", "<google password>");
if (!$db_connect) {
    die('Ah shoot, this happened: ' . mysql_error());
}

Now you’re connected to the database, you can query and search for your fields or upload data. I should note that I have not played around much with this code, and for further Cloud SQL help this tutorial looks very helpful. Since Google Cloud PHP/SQL isn’t particularly well documented at the moment, it may not be the best option for major projects; I plan to do a Google Datastore tutorial soon.


1.3: Final Notes
1.3.1: Program Overview

While GAE is a very sensible option for app development, especially apps that interact with the web, it still has a way to go as far as documentation is concerned, and that is the major weakness of it since if you have a problem there isn’t a great deal of expert knowledge widely available. That’s part of the reason why this tutorial has taken so long to put together and why it is much briefer than I’d like. (Possibly Appcelerator, Android Studio, and PhoneGap tutorials to come – I make no promises though with a dissertation to finish! Also, Unity app development is a fairly nice experience too.)


1.3.2: Good Luck and Have Fun

Good luck and have fun.

Amazon eBook Publishing; a Guide

27 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by Gargleyark in Poetry, Prose, Technology, Things that happened, Tutorials

≈ Leave a comment

Egregious Reader,

It boggles my senses, the ease with which one can put an eBook on a Kindle! Having just put Verses by Van on Amazon (sadly, they don’t have a easy way to list eBooks for free) I thought it would be interesting for those of you cursed with insolent biros to read a blog post on how to easily (really, very easily) put your scribblings on to Kindles.

Something went wrong, there should be an image of my eBook's cover hereabouts.

Oh look, a book cover!

Firstly, go to the Amazon KDP Website, where you can sign in with your Amazon account, or create a new one.

Once you log into this service there’ll be a window in the corner saying you need to complete your account details before you can publish an eBook (it’s nice to get this sorted as soon as you sign in to KDP, so you can get straight on with uploading and publishing your eBook afterwards).

Fill them in – there’s basic stuff like address, phone number, &c. – all these are needed. You also have to fill in a tax form; as long as you’re not a US resident this is a relatively simple task of saying nothing really applies, since that’s all there to calculate taxes only relevant to US residents.

Now that’s all done follow the Bookshelf link on the navigation bar and you should be able to start creating a new eBook.

Firstly, you can choose to go for KDP Select or not – I didn’t bother because my eBook is publicly available elsewhere, it has some marketing benefits, which are explained on that page if you really want it.

Then there are a load of boxes with fairly obvious uses; fill in the title, author, description, and all the other little bits.

There’s an option to upload a cover image; the ‘Cover Creator’ option for this is an excellent tool if you don’t have a cover already – and has a very nice and easy to use interface.

Then there’s a browse option, by which you can choose your book and upload it. There are plenty of files you can choose; epub being the format I used, and is a simple one to convert your writing into. Otherwise, and also incredibly simple, you can save your text as .pdf, or put it into a zipped html format.

Now just press ‘Save and Continue’ at the bottom of the page. Note should be made here; this is only possible once your account tax details have been processed by Amazon, which can take an hour or so. Until then, you can still save the book as a draft.

Now just wait and Amazon will process the book, the progress of which can be monitored through the Bookshelf page. First Amazon will check the text and, if all is well, they will begin to publish it; the whole process can take 24 hours or so – I was lucky and had my eBook up and on Amazon within two hours.

That’s how simple it is! Now go, flood Amazon with eBooks for all! And (late) Merry Christmas!

Creating an App with Google App Engine and PHP: Tutorial 1, the Basics

14 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by Gargleyark in Technology, Tutorials

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

app programming, google app engine, mobile development, php

Excellent Reader,

It is my humblest pleasure to produce and here lay down something new; an interesting technology that Google has recently put its mind into bringing to a wider audience, and I pray my humble tutorial upon it will follow similarly to their aim. I pray, should you wish, you read on and (I hope) learn from this basic tutorial.

_________________________________________________________________

Contents
1.1: Requirements/Resources

1.2: My First App
– 1.2.1: Setting up App Engine
– 1.2.2: Creating a New App
– 1.2.3: Uploading to Google
– 1.2.4: Running your App

1.3: Creating More than Hello World
– 1.3.1: Setting up your YAML
– 1.3.2: Adding Images file
– 1.3.3: Adding CSS
– 1.3.4: Favicons

1.4: Adding More Pages

1.5: Final Notes
– 1.5.1: Program Overview
– 1.5.3: Good luck and Have Fun!

_________________________________________________________________

1.1: Requirements/Resources

This app is being developed in Google App Engine 1.8.5, available here. It requires Python to be installed on your computer, at this time version 2.7 seems to be the most stable with the app engine so that’s what I’m using. If you don’t have it, it’s around about here.

Otherwise, I’m assuming you know a bit about PHP, HTML, and CSS; if not you might want to do a basic tutorial of those languages, but I’ll give you pointers here and there as we go along, and I’m sure you’re clever enough to pick up the basics.

1.2: My First App
1.2.1: Setting up App Engine

Open up Google App Engine, we need to sort it out so it knows where everything is – such as where to find the Python installation. Go onto Edit on the top menu bar and select the bottom option on that drop down; Preferences.

Now check that your preferences are set out so that the locations of your App Engine install and your Python install are listed. Click on the Select button to the right of the text boxes to find it, once done your window should look something like this:

11.2.2: Creating a New App

Go onto the top File menu and then pick Create New Application. A window will appear; give your app a name (no capital letters, spaces or anything else funny), pick where you want to save it to by clicking Browse, and finally make sure you pick PHP from the Runtime dropdown option list.

2

1.2.3: Uploading to Google

Although Google App Engine offers the wonderful option to run PHP locally (which, if you are newish to php and haven’t tried, normally doesn’t go too well), it also has access to Google’s cloud facilities and lets you upload it to that. You can probably get away with this if you’re just looking to play around with app engine, but I’d recommend you go and sign up for a Google account if you don’t already have one (or if, like me, you’ve forgotten your password). Now click the Deploy button; the upwards pointing white arrow on a blue circle background above the window with your new app’s name in it. Now log in with your Google account details and it will upload, nice and easy, eh?

1.2.4: Running Your App

With your app’s name selected in the large white box, press the Run button (the green play button) and let your app load for a second, now that it’s running you can press the Browse button (the world button). Now your app will load up in your favourite internet browser. And now you’ve created, cloud-ed, and run your first* app.

1.3: Creating More than Hello World
1.3.1: Setting up your YAML

YAML is the file type used by Google App Engine to list the directories and files that the app is allowed to access. It’s a security measure that probably has its uses somewhere more complicated than here. Anyway, to include images, CSS, or other files you need to set up the files or the directories that they are in so that the app can access them.

In the folder that the app’s files are currently saved in (in the same folder as the file called main.php) create a new folder. Lets call this one images. All lower case like with the app name.

Once that’s done go into Google App Engine, make sure the app is selected in the bottom window, and click the Edit button with the image of paper and pencil. This will open the YAML file.

To enable the app to access the images folder add a new line that says:

– url: /images
static_dir: images

This tells the app that there will always be a directory called images, and since it is now in the YAML file the app will trust content from there and allow it to be used. We’ll stick with that for now, we’ll change it as we go along.

I had some trouble here with the YAML file; by having the declarations arranged with url: /favicon\.ico at the top, followed by the above images declaration, followed by the url: .* declaration that handles main.php.

1.3.2: Adding Images

Put a picture in the images folder you created above, now open the main.php file in your app’s directory using the editor of your choice. (Notepad++ is always a favourite.) Replace the hello world code with the following.

<?php
     echo “<img src=’/images/test.png’>”;
?>

Now run your app and press browse and look – it’s a picture.

1.3.3: Adding CSS

Create a new folder again in your app directory, call this one stylesheets. In this create a file called style.css or whatever you like to call your style.

Arrange your YAML file like this:

handlers:
– url: /favicon\.ico
static_files: favicon.ico
upload: favicon\.ico

– url: /stylesheets
static_dir: stylesheets

– url: /images
static_dir: images

– url: .*
script: main.php

Now open your style.css and enter some style stuff; for demonstrative purposes I entered p { color: red; } and then edited my main.php file so that it was creating a full web page. I.e. I added the html, header, and body tags. Then I linked in the CSS into the header and put a <p> tag around a few words. If you did that, you’ll see they’re red. Have a play around and see what happens; it’s just like building a website.

1.3.4: Favicons

Your YAML file should have the favicon.ico already declared, and the .ico file itself should have been made automatically when you created your app. If it’s not declared or there’s some kind of problem, then check that your YAML file has it listed similar to the above.

The favicon is basically what shows as the image in the browser bar at the top, whether it ties in much with the finished app depends on what you build. For now, I wouldn’t worry too much about it; change it if you want. You can change the location of the favicon file by editing the YAML file and changing static_files: and upload: to static/folder_path/favicon.ico

1.4: Adding More Pages

An app really needs more than one page. Unless its an app that displays a picture of a nice beach to cheer you up on a rainy day.

Time to change your YAML file again, after the images directory declaration, and before the main.php declaration add the following code:

– url: /newpage.php
script: newpage.php

Now create a newpage.php file in your app directory, in the same folder as main.php. Add a link into your main.php folder along the lines of <a href=’/newpage.php’> Remember the / in front of the link, that seems to be important.

Awesome, what else do we need for an app basics tutorial?

My second tutorial, a shorter and simpler attempt to explain Google Cloud SQL connection, is somewhere around here.

1.5: Final Notes
1.5.1: Program Overview

I’ve only had a little while to get to grips with the program; there are plenty of good sources out there for tutorials and stackoverflow seems to have a wealth of problems and solutions for them. If you have a problem your best bet is it’ll be an error in your YAML, sounds nice, eh?

1.5.2: Good Luck and Have Fun

Good luck and have fun.

*I assumed, I do apologise if you’re in fact an experienced app builder. I am not.

How to Produce an eBook with Sigil: Tutorial #1 (The Basics)

01 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by Gargleyark in Technology, Tutorials

≈ 7 Comments

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.)
_________________________________________________________________

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
_________________________________________________________________

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.

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