ReaderWorks and Microsoft Reader work best with HTML files. We recommend
using Microsoft Front Page, or another HTML editor to create and format your text.
You can also create an eBook from a Word document. If creating your eBook
from a Microsoft Word document, we recommend using the compact HTML plug-in.
This plug-in is available at:
office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/Msohtmf2.aspx.
You can also create your eBook by using the "save as web page" feature
in Microsoft Word.
There are other workarounds for formatting your text in Microsoft Word.
Doug Clapp has written a guide for formatting text files for Microsoft Reader
using Microsoft Word. This guide is available at:
www.cewindows.net/reader/makingreaderbooks.htm.
We recommend using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to control formatting.
This eliminates many formatting issues within the eBook. CSS also allows you
to make a one-time style change across the entire eBook instead of searching and replacing
specific tags. For a reference on CSS see
www.w3.org/Style/CSS/.
Using Fonts:
We recommend that you do not embed font tags in your document. Change fonts using CSS.
To convert ASCII text files, you can either place the ASCII into ReaderWorks or optn the document
first in Microsoft Word change the font, and "save as HTML". Using the first option will result in a monospace
courier text. The latter option will result in a more aestehtically pleasing font.
Currently, the clear type fonts that are available in Microsoft Reader are
Berling Antiqua (Serif), Frutiger Linotype (Sans Serif), Lucida Sans Typewriter
(Monospaced) and Georgia (Sans Serif).
We recommend setting your fonts to the defaults (Serif - Berling Antiqua, Sans
Serif - Frutiger Linotype, or Monospace - Lucida Sans Typewriter). By setting
your fonts to the defaults, your fonts will change according to the default font
specifications on the users machine. If you want your fonts to remain the same
despite a users settings, specify the name of the font.
Table of Contents (TOC)
Name your files consistently (Chapter 1, Chapter 2 not Chapter 1, Chapter Two).
This will aid in the creation of your table of contents using the Table of Contents
Wizard.
You can rebuild your table of contents multiple times if you are not happy
with the format.
If there is a small change that needs to be made in your table of contents, you
can open the contents.htm (or whatever you named your TOC) in your HTML editor
to make a small change. Then you will not need to rebuild your entire table
of contents using the wizard for one small edit.
Do you want your Table of Contents in the reading order of your eBook and not
to pop-up as a pagelet? After you build your Table of Content, return to the
Source Files workspace. Click the add button, then add your table of contents
to the location in the book you desire.
General Formatting
Paragraphs in Microsoft Reader automatically indent. To override this feature, use
CSS (text-indent: 0)
If you use the tab key to indent your paragraphs in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Reader will
indent them again, which means you will have a large indent. ReaderWorks
defaults to convert Tabs to 4 spaces. If you have formatted your document
in Word with Tabs, go to Tools-->options-->text and change the number of
resolve tabs to 0 spaces.
There are two ways to add blank lines to your eBook. You can either add
a break tag (<br />) or add a paragraph with a non-breaking space
(<p> </p>).
If you add the blank lines using the paragraph tag, it is important not to
forget the non-breaking space.
Images
The recommend image sizes for the cover page art is:
