MS Word to Kindle Quick Look

MS Word is much easier than HTML because Word does most of the work for you from "pre-formatted" Styles and Templates.

You don't even have to "understand" how it works... you just have to choose the Styles you want.

To see how Styles work, let's format a very simple file.

Open MS Word and choose:

File | New

MS Word will display a new blank file.

Type the lines below (or just copy and paste) into your new blank file.

MS Word to Kindle Quick Look
Chapter One
Text of chapter one. Text of chapter one. Text of chapter one. Text of chapter one. Text of chapter one. Text of chapter one. Text of chapter one. Text of chapter one. Text of chapter one. Text of chapter one.
Chapter Two
Text of chapter two. Text of chapter two. Text of chapter two. Text of chapter two. Text of chapter two. Text of chapter two. Text of chapter two. Text of chapter two. Text of chapter two. Text of chapter two.

Now, open your Styles menu with CTRL-SHIFT-S.

Your screen will now look like the image below. 

Double-Click on an image to cause it to enlarge so you can read the menu items.

Styles Menu Open Ready to Clear All

The Styles menu is that gray pane at the far left of the screen.

If you look closely, you will see that the highlight shows that I am ready to apply "Clear All" to my file.

I want to apply "Clear All" because any file copied from another source is likely to bring along garbage that could mess up formatting.

I highlight my entire file and click Clear All in the Styles menu...

Now I have a nice clean file and am ready to start applying Styles to format the Title and the Headings of the Chapters.

With my cursor at the end of the Title of my file, I use the tiny arrow at the end of the selection box on the Style menu to scroll to find a Style named Title, and click to apply it.

My file now looks like the image below.  Notice that I have selected the word Title from the Styles Menu, and also that the Style Title is selected with a red box in the Ribbon Menu at the top of the screen. (This is just a matter of convenience.  You use either one.)

Apply Title Style

Now that my Title is formatted, I want to format my Chapter Headings.

Both are of equal importance, so I want to apply Heading 1 to both.

I go to my Style Menu again, and scroll until I find the Style named Heading 1.

I then click my cursor at the end of Chapter One and apply Heading 1, then do the same for Chapter Two.

My file now looks like the image below.  Notice that Heading 1 is selected in the Styles box, and Heading 1 is also selected with a red box in the Ribbon Menu at the top of the page.

Apply Heading 1 to Chapter Titles

There you have it... that's pretty much all there is to formatting.

We have only a few things left to do. 

We want  each Chapter to start on a new page, so we will modify the Heading 1 Style to include a "page break before".

We will create a Table of Contents.

We will insert "Bookmarks" to tell the Kindle where to Start and where to find the Table of Contents.

We'll show you how in following articles.

2 comments:

  1. I am new to the Styles and trying to discover a way to Avoid Bulleted Lists in Word 2010 – Most of my book contains wordy sections of lists with wrap around text. How can I work around the bullet issues I’ve seen many negative comments on?

    I need a slight indent for the lists after the Heading 2 line. Would individual indented Paragraph in Styles work with the character X in bold & underlined at the beginning ( to sub as the clear bullet) Then leave the first line hanging by .01” be a good substitute for a bulleted list? I’m brain challenged so learning another program isn’t an option.
    I’ve searched other forums and only one person seem to think the bulleted list option in Word 2010 worked in the preview, no follow-up if it actually published correctly.
    Would sure appreciate your help.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lafer,

    I think it's a "feature" of Kindle... not a fault of MS Word... that makes it impossible to make attractive bullet lists that have wrap-around text.

    I've never found a good solution... and I've never seen a solution from the people who work with HTML either... even though they post that they can do it... they just post their code, not proof that it works.

    A single line will work, yes... but when a line wraps, the Kindle will lose track, sooner or later.

    I'm sorry... I wish I could help... and, if by chance, you do find a solution, please come back to report!

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete