I've been learning to make an epub file (for e-readers) from an MS Word document using Calibre. I've been asked for an epub version of Writing Freeform Larps, so I thought it was time to learn how to do it.
It turned out to be relatively painless - although I found myself going around in circles several times.
The essentials
So the process consisted of copying the MS Word document I used for Writing Freeform Larps and:
- Replacing the fonts with a simple Arial font - e-readers have their own fonts.
- Removing headers and footers.
- Removing the page breaks and white space I'd inserted to make the pages look right.
- Remove cross-references within the document.
- Review formatting for bullets - my first attempt was a bit weird. I think they're still a little weird, but they're not as weird as they first were.
- Change tables to be in % width rather than an absolute width. (The first time I did this, they were wider than the page, and I couldn't read them properly.)
Then:
- Import the docx into Calibre
- Turn it into an epub
- Email it to my Kindle
- And check
And every time I spot an error, I delete the file from my Kindle, amend the docx and go through the process again. (Happily, this doesn't take long.)
So I think I'm there. The e-pub files are now uploaded to Itch.io and DriveThruRPG.
Of course, I now have two versions of Writing Freeform Larps to maintain...
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