“How to make an eBook using Mobipocket Creator and OpenOffice.org writer, Part 2“

Hi there, my name is Rosemary and I write books. For the longest time I didn't know how to make my own eBook and now with a little “trial and error" I've managed to learn to create my own interactive eBooks. I haven’t the money to purchase Microsoft word so I use the free OpenOffice.org writer. Here is my tutorial to show you how to do it.

(If you haven’t seen Part 1, I strongly encourage you to check it out. You’ll be very lost if you’re just attempting an eBook without having an interactive table of contents. The steps it takes to create it involve Hyper-linking the chapters and using an outline. This is achieved by applying headings to the titles of each chapter. This is a basic demonstration involving the standard style and function in creating an eBook.)

Step 1: Now that you have an HTML file saved of your book with a Hyper-linked table of contents, you have to turn it into an eBook. The first step is downloading and opening Mobipocket Creator. (No worries it’s free) Open Mobipocket Creator.

Step2: Look at the Mobipocket Creator application home page and see “Import from existing file" and go down to “HTML document". Import your saved HTML document containing your eBook and make sure the destination folder is different from the location you kept your original HTML file. You do not want to use your original in case something goes wrong. Use the copy created in the new folder.

Step 3: Go to the menu option, “View” and scroll down to “Guide”. Click “new guide item” and select under ”Type” the word “toc”. Then hit browse and use the copy of the HTML you made. Then at the end of the file name type #toc

(It should look like this: example.html#toc )

Click “new guide item" Do the same thing again except this time under “Type” choose the word “start”.

(It should look like this: example.html#start )

Step 4: Click Update

Step 5: Go to the menu option on the left hand side: Cover Image. Click “Add a cover Image”, browse, choose your image file then click Update.

Please note: This is just for a simple eBook. If you want to get fancier with it, I suggest you fiddle around with the styles and see what you like.

Step 6: Click on the menu option: “Build”. If you want to encrypt it, it’s up to you. For the purposes of this example, click “standard compression” and “no encryption”. Then hit “Build”.

Congratulations, you now have an eBook with an interactive table of contents.

So long!:D

Click here for part 1!

Article by: Rosemary Jasmine Rivera