Crafting eBooks: eReader Formatting Headaches Away!

What the heck Smashwords?!?

Well I thought I’d gotten the formatting right on the Saturday Story Prompts Collection : 2011.06 & 2013.06, but thanks to a review from Nickii I’ve realized I didn’t quite pull it off. (If you’re reading this Nickii, drop me an email and I’ll give you a free coupon for the next eBook in thanks! :D)

I followed the instructions that Smashwords provided in their Style Guide, but I must have overlooked something. As you can see by the example to the right the Meatgrinder (Smashword’s automatic format generator) seems to have gone a bit awry.

Thankfully I’ve been able to find a way to check most of the formats myself (links below)…

Formats Away!

These are all the formats that don’t require other software for me to open:

  • Online Reading (HTML, good for sampling in web browser) – ok
  • Online Reading (JavaScript, experimental, buggy) – ok
  • PDF (good for reading on PC, or for home printing) – ok
  • RTF (readable on most word processors) – What the heck went wrong here? Small Caps, small caps everywhere! :p
  • Plain Text (download) (flexible, but lacks much formatting) – Ugly, but working
  • Plain Text (view) (viewable as web page) – Ugly, but working

These are the formats where I had to download a program:

These are the formats I am still looking for ways to check:

  • Apple iBooks (Epub) – I don’t own any Apple products :p
  • Aldiko (Epub) – My Android phone is too old and stupid to run this, apparently.

Martha Bechtel

My name is Martha Bechtel and I write fantasy and science fiction stories, paint small model horses silly colors, cast resin and plaster magnets, code random code (and Wordpress plugins)... Come on in and join in the fun!

Leave a Reply