MS Word Uploaded Directly to Amazon KDP
In this article, we show you how to create a Kindle eBook using MS Word without any other software and without advanced formatting.
For illustration purposes, we will be using some poems by Emily Dickinson, which, since they are now in the Public Domain, can be found on the Gutenberg website.
To follow along, you might want to download some of those poems, or alternatively, you might use one of your own files.
Using one of your own files is a good idea, because you can see what you can achieve with your own manuscript, without risking any damage to your file.
{1} The first step is to import your file as plain text to get rid of any garbage or clutter that was in the original file.
Open Microsoft Word, and open a new clean file with:
File | New
Save the (still blank) file as Poems by Emily Dickinson.
Next, go to your original manuscript or test file, highlight the entire file (with CTRL-A), then press CTRL-C.
Go back to Poems by Emily Dickinson. (the new, still blank file you just created).
Click your cursor at the beginning of the first line, and press CTRL-V.
The Paste Options box appears:
Paste Options box
The icon at the far right... a large letter A... represents "plain text".
Click the large letter A icon to import your original file as plain text.
Your file, (the formerly blank Poems by Emily Dickinson) is now full of plain text.
Next, we will display our Styles Panel, then format Poems by Emily Dickinson with Styles that Microsoft Word has already provided for us.
Press CTRL-SHIFT-S.
The Styles panel is displayed and your file now looks like this:
Plain Text File Ready to Format
On a plain text display like this, incorrect spacing and page breaks are more easily found than in finished format.
As I scroll through the file, I notice several things that need to be corrected.
Most obvious is that the poems follow one after the other, without a page break between them.
We will fix that by using a Style that has a feature of "Page Break Before".
I also notice that some poems have titles, while others have no titles.
In your own file, you would want to make all pages consistent, but, from her history, we know that Emily Dickinson often did not name her poems, so we will leave this as is.
*If you are working on your own file, this is, most likely, where you will have the most to do. I cover cleanup in other articles.
Here is an article that covers how to clean up your MS Word file:
Clean Up MS Word
When your file appears clean at this point, you are ready to apply Styles, Create a Table of Contents, and upload to Amazon KDP.
We will cover all that in other articles.
HI CJ,
ReplyDeleteYour site looks very helpful. I want to publish on Kindle a very short cookbook. Because of the formatting required by recipes I'm wondering if you think Word direct to Kindle will work. I have a handful of quotes I would like to center as stand alones on some pages. Any suggestions please? Many thanks, Connie
Connie,
ReplyDeleteSorry I didn't get to your comment until now. I wasn't ignoring you...
My best suggestion is for you to go through the articles about how to use the complete template and publishing package I've offered here.
That will give you several different ideas about how to format paragraphs that will suit your purposes.
If you don't see anything that fits, contact me again and let's look at it together.
I have roughly 1000 jpegs. Each is a page of a historical document. What is the best way to publish this on kindle?
ReplyDeleteChristopher,
DeleteFirst… to be sure we are in sync:
(1) These jpegs are images of pages from a very old Bible, right?
(3) The goal is to view the images as photographs, not necessarily to read the text, right?
Let’s look at some facts and challenges:
The only way to display an image “full screen”… that is, fill the entire screen, top to bottom, side to side… is to submit the image in the correct aspect ratio for the target screen.
The article below discusses aspect ratios and gives a list of the screen sizes and aspect ratios of Kindle eBooks.
https://developer.amazon.com/appsandservices/solutions/devices/kindle-fire/app-development/01--screen-layout-and-resolution
That is a challenge for anyone if the book is to be read on different Kindle and other eBook devices.
It is an even greater challenge for you because you don’t have the luxury of formatting your images in the exact size and aspect ratio.
(That, of course, is because your jpegs already exist, and, being pages of a book, they can’t be cropped to the correct aspect ratio.)
But there is hope:
You can’t make pages “full screen” on all devices, but with careful formatting… and a lot of testing on different devices, you can arrive at a “compromise” that looks “excellent” on some screens, and “ok” on others.
Another fact is that 1,000 full size images would create a book larger than Amazon Kindle (with current technology) could handle.
There is hope here, also:
A possible solution would be to create new images… each a “paste-up” of several images to a page, with the size and aspect ratio of the new pages (images) being determined according to the guidelines in the article above.
A lot of work, I know... but perhaps worth it, in light of the work that has already been done to preserve this historic document.
Let me know how it goes.
Christopher, I forgot to mention:
DeleteIf images are sized properly, they can be "zoomed" on most current tablets.
Then, an individual page (now one of your jpegs) could be zoomed even larger with touch screen gestures.
In that way individual pages from the historic document may even be made readable. (Depending, of course, on the quality of the jpeg.)