Formatting Issues in Converting Physical Books to eBooks
We replicate the original print layout of a book as closely as possible, but it isn't efficient or even possible in many cases to duplicate the existing layout. We will follow such styling as bold, italic, and line spacing, but many of the attractive design elements of the existing book will have to be lost in the .epub and .mobi versions. The eBook .pdf, however, will look just like the book, although most PDF-compatible reading devices display a single page at a time rather than a two page spread as we are accustomed to in physical books.
It's not possible to format large, complicated text in tables in .epub and .mobi, and therefore the tables have to be treated as graphic elements. Most of the publishers we deal with also want the captions to "stay " with their tables and not "jump " to the next "page " in an eBook format, so we usually include the captions as part of the graphic elements. The downside is that on a small reading device, small type can be very difficult to read. Sorry to say, there is no way around this currently. Therefore we recommend that some of the table be treated just like a blockquote or regular bulleted text. That will ensure readability on small devices.
Regarding hyperlinking an index, many publishers choose to opt simply for adding a line of text at the beginning of the index that says something like: THIS INDEX REFERS TO PAGES IN THE PRINT EDITION. THESE IMPORTANT KEYWORDS CAN BE FOUND BY USING THE SEARCH FEATURE OF YOUR READING DEVICE.
We offer a free sample eBook in both .epub and .mobi (Kindle) formats to preview if you aren't familiar with the look of today's eBooks.
If you don't have a reading device available, you can download free previewing software from Adobe Digital Editions and Amazon. After you install these applications, you can preview the sample files on your computer.
We are always happy to answer any questions you may have about formatting issues. Fee free to
