How to Prepare Your Manuscript
Working with ePub requires some (simple) specific formatting to make any story look good and easily readable. The following steps will prepare your document for turning it into an ePub (and Kindle) compatible product. For a more detailed looking at everything Legend Maker has to offer, please check out the User's Guide.
Note that you can print this guide (or save it as a PDF) by selection Print from the File menu.
First Step:
Format
The first thing you have to do is format your RTF document (or Word doc – docx files cannot be processed properly) for importation. The following parameters must be maintained:
Font Size: 18 points is assumed to be the default (100%) size for your main body. You can use other font sizes for headings, etc (even your main body) and they will be rendered relative to the base font size (e.g. 14 points is 80% and 24 points is 135%). Most readers allow for user control of the font size (small, medium, large) so everything is sized relative to the user's current selection.
Font face: You have limited control over the font used in the reader. Most readers have a small selection of fonts and allow the user to select the font to use. We include your font selections in the ePub to ensure the best possible rendering if the reader supports your font but you should only rely on Times New Roman (or equivalent Serif font) being present as a reader's default font. You can use other fonts as required by your document (titles, quotes, etc) but you should ensure that everything will still look good if there's only Times.
Remove all Header and Footer data from your file.
Line spacing is defined by the reader so anything you set will be ignored. All other formatting (blank lines, indenting, etc) is respected – your story will look exactly as you format it. Note that some readers ignore all of your formatting in favor of user settings – rest assured that your ePub book does have the formatting and will appear correctly in other readers.
Styles (Word only): Stick to the Normal style. Custom styles won't be converted properly.
Tables: Word and RTF tables format correctly in ePub books. The Kindle, however, does not support tables. If you want to use tables in a Kindle book you'll need to include them as images (see the Second Step below).
Please note that, if you are using Pages, you should export your manuscript as RTF, not a Word document – the Word tables generated by Pages cannot be properly processed by Legend Maker.
Page breaks: To force a page break include the text ####### on a line by itself and include a blank line after the page break line. Note that if you are using Word, hitting return will cause an auto-correct, which we don't want. If Word does this, simply do an undo to get rid of the auto-correct.
Hyperlinks: Legend Maker supports hyperlinks (Word/RTF) embedded in your document. Include links to any websites you wish (e.g. author/artist information, extra resources and information about this book/universe) using an inserted hyperlink (your editor will include a menu item such as "Add Link…" or "Insert Hyperlink…"). The book will display these links and jump to a web browser if the reader taps on the link (if the reading device supports web access).
Bookmarks: Bookmarks will provide a table of contents for your story. You can add (one) bookmark to any page by including the following text (on it's own line) to define a bookmark for that page:
bookmark:Chapter 1
The text following "bookmark:" will appear in the table of contents and none of the text for the bookmark will appear in your book text. The bookmark also defines a page break since ePub forces table of contents entries to begin a section/paragraph. Note that you do not need to include an explicit page break in addition to the bookmark – Legend Maker will add one for you. Finally, make sure that any text (such as a chapter heading) comes after the bookmark since Legend Maker will use the bookmark to indicate where a new page should start.
Don't include a bookmark for the end of a book/section since ePub needs that to define a new section, which you likely don't want.
Finally, Legend Maker does not include the table of contents as text within your book (it does, however, always exist for navigation within the ebook reader). If you want to include table of contents text, include the text "bookmark:contents" as an extra line to indicate where you want the table of contents in your book. You can control the title of the table of contents by using "toc:My ToC Title" instead of "bookmark:contents".
Links: Within your story text you can add links to any bookmarks you have in your book. To do so, include the bookmark name surrounded by {{ and }}. For example:
Please see {{Chapter 1}} for details.
Legend Maker will convert this to:
Please see Chapter 1 for details.
The link text will be highlighted by the ebook reader. Note that the link text must be the exact name used to define the bookmark.
Footnotes/Endnotes: Legend Maker cannot provide footnotes in an ePub or Kindle book since there is no concept of a fixed page. Legend Maker does, however, support endnotes that link between the text in your book and each endnote. Include the endnote text in your manuscript by demarcating the text with << and >>. For example:
It was a dark and stormy night.<<Yes, this is trite!>> A dog barked as rain slapped the window.
Legend Maker will convert this to:
It was a dark and stormy night.1 A dog barked as rain slapped the window.
The 1 is a link to the text "1. Yes, this is trite!" in the endnotes section. After the note there will be a link that takes the reader back to the 1 in the text.
This allows you to enter notes without worrying about numbering, linking, etc – Legend Maker will take care of everything for you.
By default, Legend Maker will put the Endnotes section at the end of your book. If you want to place the section somewhere else (say before your "About the Author" section), include the text "bookmark:endnotes" as an extra line to indicate where you want the Endnotes in your book. Or, use "pnh:My Notes Title" if you want to use your own title. Note that you cannot have any notes after your "bookmark:endnotes".
Legend Maker will always include "Endnotes" as an entry in your table of contents.
Once you've done the above, save your file to a new file in .rtf (or .doc) format.
Second Step:
Graphics: Image files take up space so keeping the files small is a good idea.
That said, you'll want a cover illustration, maybe a map for a novel, and an author picture.
One image is required for each book: the cover.
Format: .PNG or .JPG
Size: 560 pixels wide by 740 pixels tall for a full-page image.
Covers: The cover illustration will be the first image seen and should by a full-page image.
Once you have the cover illustration, save it as cover.jpg (or cover.png). It will go in as your first page – Legend Maker defines your book to look for that exact file for displaying the cover page.
Author picture: If you decide to include an author picture, set it up/crop it to the appropriate dimensions and save it to authorpic.jpg.
Any other pictures: Make sure the pictures are the right size, then place the following inside your story at the place you want the picture to show up:
image:picturename.jpg
Legend Maker will ensure that the image is centered on the page – perfect for illos separating scenes within a chapter.
You also have the option of left or right aligning the image using "limage:" or "rimage:", respectively. The text immediately following one of these images will flow around the image – perfect for drop caps at the beginning of a chapter and magazine style pictures at the beginning of an article. The Kindle doesn't support left and right aligned images so you won't be able to use drop caps if you need a Kindle version – we suggest doing two manuscripts, one with the drop caps and one without, so that you have slightly different versions for Kindle and ePub (no use having a less than an ideal book for ePub just because of Kindle's limitations). You'll need to run each through Legend Maker separately but you end up with the best book for each platform.
Note that you'll need to be careful with the background color of these images – the ebook reader software may allow the reader to change the color of the book, so you'll want to make the background transparent (e.g. if the book background becomes black a drop cap with a white background will look terrible).
Remember, you have a limit to what can fit on a single page and you should limit dimensions as much as possible.
Third Step:
Audio/Video: Readers such as the iPhone and iPad are multimedia devices that can play audio and video embedded within a book. Readers that don't support audio or video will simply skip the embedded files and Legend Maker will not include them when creating a Kindle book (since the Kindle doesn't support audio or video at this time). Web based readers (e.g. ibis reader) support the embedded files as long as you are using a browser that supports HTML5 (e.g. Safari 5).
You can use audio and video to enhance your book: include a video trailer at the beginning of the book (or each chapter), include an audiobook version, include background music to set the mood while reading a chapter. The possibilities are endless.
Audio Formats: Legend Maker supports .mp3, .aac, .m4a and .m4b encoded audio files.
Video Formats: Legend Maker supports .mov, .mp4, .m4v and .3gp encoded video files. Note that only video files that can play on an iPad/iPhone will play within a book in iBooks. Be sure to test your video on your device prior to including it in your book (you can also use iTunes to convert the video into a compatible format -- choosing iPhone will ensure that it plays on both the iPad and the iPhone).
To include an audio file, place the following (on its own line) where you want the audio to show up:
audio:chapter1.mp3
To include a video file, place the following (on its own line) where you want the video to show up:
video:chapter1.m4v
To fully comply with Apple's book requirements, Poster Art is required as a placeholder image when a video is not playing. The image should be 150 pixels high by 300 pixels wide and match the video aspect ratio. Legend Maker assumes that the poster art will be a PNG file with the same name as the video (e.g. if you have included chapter1.m4v, there will be chapter1.png). Simply include the PNG file along with your video and Legend Maker will include it in your book.
Please note that audio and video are not part of the current ePub standard and as such the ePub validator will flag "audio" and "video" as unknown elements. While this is true, the ePubs will load correctly and Apple will accept them for submission to the iBookstore.
Fourth Step (optional):
Author/Book Information: We can include additional information in the ePub for display when the Reader is showing a list of books. If you don't want to type in all of your book information in Legend Maker, or you have a large number of books to process, you can pre-define the information for Legend Maker to load when you select a manuscript.
Create a file called "bookInfo.txt" with the following information (in the order given, each item on its own line):
Book Title
Author Name
Publisher
Copyright Notice
Date Published (in the format: YYYY-MM-DD)
ISBN
Genre
If you don't have (or want to provide) a particular piece of information, please leave the line blank.
If you don't provide a book title and author name the Reader will display default naming (your ePub's raw file name and no name for the author).
Legend Maker will also save any book information you enter (or update) in the bookInfo.txt file. This way, any information you put into Legend Maker is ready for use the next time you want to work with the manuscript. As such, please don't delete the bookInfo.txt file – if you do, you'll lose all of the information you entered in Legend Maker.
Fifth Step:
Create a folder and into it put the following:
yourstory.rtf
bookInfo.txt
cover.png
authorpic.png (and any other picture, audio, video files)
Legend Maker uses the folder's name to name the ePub file that it creates so you should use a good, short name. Further, Legend Maker places your completed ePub (as foldername.epub) and Kindle (as foldername For Kindle.zip) books in this folder.
Note that Legend Maker looks for files (bookInfo.txt and images, etc) in the same folder as your document and copies all found .png, audio and video files into the book. So make sure bookInfo.txt is there and that you only include the files you need for your book.