How to Make an Ebook
Using Free Software
R. L. Copple
Published by Ethereal Press at Smashwords
Edition 1
Copyright 2011, R. L. Copple. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced—mechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying—without written permission from the author.
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This book mentions and gives links to several companies, products, and websites. All trademarks and copyrights are owned by the respective companies of those products. The author and publisher are not associated with any of these companies, work for any of these companies, sell any of the products mentioned in this book, nor earn any affiliate or other income from mentioning these products and companies in this book.
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Table of Contents
Step 1 – Creating the Source File
Step 3 – Creating the PDF Ebook
Step 4 – Creating the Smashwords Edition
Step 5 – Creating the EPUB Ebook and Uploading to B&N
Step 6 – Creating the MOBI Ebook and Uploading to Amazon
Step 7 – What To Do With the Ebooks
Appendix A – Creating the PDB Ebook
Appendix B – Using Smashwords' Nuclear Option
Appendix C – Software/Link Index
Introduction
As of this writing, it is obvious that ebooks will, at some point in the near future, overtake the sale of physical books. The trend accelerated during 2010, and all indications are that the movement has sped up to a roadrunner pace during 2011. Publishers have been scrambling to lock down ebook rights on old contracts, while authors who retain those rights have realized their old backlist is a new gold mine of potential income. More and more readers are buying ereaders like Amazon's Kindle, and Barnes and Noble's Nook. The expectations for the future look bright for anyone who has hopped onto the ebook train.
In short, any author who doesn't factor in ebook sales as significant for years to come has his or her head in the sand. Whether you are a new author preparing your first book, or an established author who wants to get your backlist into circulation, ebooks provide an excellent mode to publish your work.
The new author might ask, "I can see the advantage of established authors getting their backlist out, but how can this help a new author?"
As a new author, you can put your work out for the public to evaluate before you sink any money into creating a physical book to sell. No money? Correct, because I'm going to show you how to create an ebook in several formats without spending any money. Not only that, but also how to do it so you end up with a professional product. In many cases, your ebook will look better formatted than many traditional publishers', simply because they often take their print file and create an ebook from it with few, if any, modifications.
But once you get your story out as an ebook, you will tend to get feedback on it. Maybe someone finds a typo on page 25, or notices that you didn't have your police acting like real police. Unlike a physical book, an ebook is easily fixed and the new copy uploaded. In traditional print runs, you're stuck with several thousand books containing those errors. No redo on those. And even with "Print on Demand" (POD) books, there is usually a fee associated with changing the text once you've said it was ready. But you can fix an ebook easily, and upload the new version within a day or two at no additional cost.
Once your content is published in an ebook, you can gauge how well it is selling to justify creating the print book, and earn the money to do it. If there are problems with the ebook selling, you can either fix it before going to print, or decide the content won't sell well and save yourself the expense of putting out a book that might lay dormant forever.
"What if I want to be published by one of the big publishers? Will putting out an ebook prevent that?"
Only if your story isn't ready. Sales will show whether what you have is enticing to a publisher. But publishers are willing to print a published ebook that is selling. What a big publisher offers that isn't easy for an indie publisher in today's market is getting onto bookstore shelves. But the chances of even a good book getting traditionally published are slim unless you already have a following. Having an ebook out that is selling well indicates you have that appeal and a following that a bigger publisher can leverage.
And even if you wish to retain first rights for a publisher for who that may be important, having the option to self-publish it gives you negotiating leverage. If you know you can earn at least $30,000 over ten years by self-publishing, you're not likely to settle for a $10,000 advance from a publisher unless you're getting other good terms from them. Having this option available gives you more confidence at the negotiating table.
But if your ebook tanks, then it gives you opportunity to learn so you can write the next book better. Why did it tank? Did you skimp on the editing and/or proofreading? Was the story full of typos and grammar mistakes? Did the story meander in the backwoods before getting going and need trimming? Did the characters come across as stereotypes and unnatural?
An author is rarely the best person to spot these types of problems. An editor or good friend who knows how to edit can assist you with getting the story into shape. A good proofreader can help spot typos and grammar mistakes that need fixing. The last thing you want is someone to download your sample and find three or five typos in the first chapter.
But these are the types of things you can discover and work on each time you write. Then when your book starts selling better, you'll know you're improving. An ebook can be a no-cost way of finding out if what you've got is something a publisher would be interested in. Because what a publisher is most interested in is whether your book will sell or not. If they see decent ebook sales, they very well could conclude that they can market that book.
And no, a publisher of a novel is not always interested in first print rights like a magazine would be for a short story. Two different things. First, print rights for short stories in magazines are important because the magazine wants to publish original work, generally. That's because a short story can be resold several times to different magazines. Some magazines will accept reprints, but usually they'd much rather be the first to print a short story.
Why? Because that is what sells magazines. If I see a story I've read before in another magazine, I'm not as likely to buy a copy of that magazine. Those who follow an author are the most likely to buy a magazine containing his or her story. So the first time it comes out, most of their followers will read it there. All those readers are not likely to buy the next magazine that carries the same story, so a magazine knows if they want to sell the most copies, they need to have a story from an author that the author's fan base has never seen before.
But the opposite happens with novels and publishers. The audience a big publisher can reach isn't one that a self-publishing author will likely reach. An indie author can take years to hit the same audience that a big publisher can potentially create in months. So a publisher knows that there are a lot of people out there who are not fans of the author, but would become so if they read the book. So they conclude they can make money with a book with a proven track record. But it will never get that track record sitting on your hard drive, waiting for an agent or publisher to say, "Okay, we'll take a chance on a new, unproven, writer." It happens, but not frequently. The publishing slots in the big publishers are so few and the competition is so high, even a good manuscript will struggle to catch a publishing slot.
Note, most standard publishing contracts do have a "first rights" clause in them. That's because for most novels a publisher publishes, they usually get first rights and would prefer that. However, if they like a story and believe they can tap segments of the audience the author has barely scratched, they will change that clause. Having been printed will not, in most cases, prevent a publisher from considering your story. It is why the top selling indie authors are being approached by big publishing companies. If they think they can make money with your story, they'll look and buy. Only be up front with them that it has already been published. You don't want to sign a contract stating that the publisher is getting first rights when they aren't, or it can come back to bite you.
So there are advantages to authors, both established and as-of-yet unpublished, to consider putting some of their work out on ebook. "But what about having someone create the ebook for you?" I can hear you asking.
There are plenty of people willing to do that. Some for a fee, some agents are getting into the publishing business via that route as well, taking a percentage of the profits, or there are publishers that primarily or only publish ebooks, giving the author a royalty, maybe even a small advance. So there are routes you can go to do this other than self-publish, and leave the ebook creation and distribution in the hands of others. For some authors, that may be the route to go.
So why self-publish your ebooks? One, it isn't that hard. I'm going to take you step-by-step through the process of creating the source files and the final product for the EPUB, MOBI/PRC, and PDF formats. If you don't know what those are, don't worry. Then I'll show you how to get these for sale on Smashwords, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. We'll be going through them one at a time, including the creation of covers. This includes a learning curve, but time well spent. Once you have the steps down, you'll wonder why you ever feared doing it yourself.
But the big reason you should learn to create your own ebooks is you get to keep 100% of the royalties, and you get to keep 100% of the rights. Any cost you incur, or percentage cuts you hand over, and contracts you sign, will net you less money and can restrict what you can do with your ebook, and if you're not careful, what you can do with the other titles you create, and your career.
Since it's not rocket science to learn how to do this, and the opportunity to keep all your rights and money is a big benefit, the time to learn the steps is more than worth the benefits you'll receive. But if this still doesn't sound appealing, chances are you picked up this book by mistake. I'm assuming if you are reading a book titled, "How to Make an Ebook," that you have already decided to be open to the idea, if not ready to dive right in.
Before we dig into the nitty-gritty, here are a few things you will want to keep in mind about ebooks. First, a PDF differs significantly from the EPUB and MOBI formats. PDF stands for Portable Document Format and was created by Adobe. It has the benefit of looking most like a book in its display, and can handle graphics in books easier than the other two formats. It can have page numbers and retain the print format of the paper version. But because of these benefits, it is best for viewing on a computer screen, or at least a tablet like the iPad. When displayed on a smaller screen, like a cell phone, the text becomes too small to read comfortably. Zooming in means the reader has to scan the page back and forth to read it. However, I have a method of creating PDF documents that not only makes them easier to read on a computer screen, but makes it possible to view on a small screen as well.
But the other two formats, EPUB (a universal format which can be read on most computers, Apple and Android tablets, including the Nook, and cell phones as well as Blackberry) and MOBI/PRC (the format associated primarily with Kindle ereaders, but readable on a few other devices). These three formats account for the bulk of ebook sales.
Another format that is used is PDB, which refers to the old Palm format. It is used, but not nearly as widely as it used to be. That said, it has one of the best reading applications for the PC computer out there. If I'm going to read on my computer, that format is my preferred method. The program can be found at the ereader.com site. This format can create a very good ebook, but unless you are willing to spend some money to buy software that will create it for you, the free route gets pretty complicated. I will include the instructions for that format in my appendix for those brave souls who wish to indulge themselves. But since it only accounts for around 20% of online sales, and Smashwords can create a version of it for download if someone wants it, I'm not going to go into the details in the main part of the book.
Note, there are some conversions to PDB on a couple of the programs I'll be using ("Save as" in Open Office Writer, and Calibre). However, neither has produced a correctly formatted PDB file. Experiment with them if you wish, but they don't tend to retain chapter heading formatting or create a table of contents. If you're fine with that, then have at it.
The advantages of the EPUB and MOBI over the PDF involves what the PDF can't do: flow text. In these formats, the words will flow into whatever the reading device's screen allows. The user has the option to make the words bigger or smaller, as well as other formatting options. What this means is page numbers become meaningless. What might be page 50 on an iPad, becomes page 225 on a cell phone, and page 95 on a Kindle. What page text falls on all depends on how much screen space the ereader has and how big the font size is. Consequently, for these formats, we'll be getting rid of the page numbers that are traditionally used in a print book, and can be in a PDF format ebook.
The downside is a book with graphics usually doesn't display correctly on many devices. A graphic that is 300 pixels wide might look fine on a computer screen or a tablet, but only show the left third of the picture on a cell phone. We had one such ebook, published by a traditional publisher, that had this problem. The original book had graphics for some charts and certain lists. I'm sure it looked fine in the paperback, but on my cell phone, we couldn't see most of it. So if you're using some graphics, you want to make sure they are no bigger than around 100 pixels wide. If you don't know what a pixel is, hold that question. We'll get to that when we go over preparing your source file.
But the upside to these formats is it makes reading a book on most any device doable. While one will have to flip the page more frequently on a cell phone screen, the book is just as readable on that screen as it will be on a Kindle or one's PC computer.
One other note before we start off. In many cases, there are multiple routes to accomplish a given task. You may have a favorite program you like to use or a method that you feel works better than the one I'm showing you. Cool. If it works for you, no skin off my back. But in order to keep things as uncomplicated as possible, I'm going to focus on one set of programs and methods that have worked best for me. I think most people will be able to obtain the programs and use them. When I say to use one program to convert to an EPUB, that doesn't mean there aren't other free sites or programs out there which can do the same thing. In all these cases, I don't have anything to do with the owners of these programs I'm recommending, don't know them, have no financial interest in their success. I'm only mentioning them because I've used them and they work for me. I don't want to take up pages describing how to accomplish one result with multiple programs. If you use other programs, you're on your own applying the basic concepts presented here as it would work in that program.
There is one exception to this, however. As we go, you will see I recommend using Open Office Writer. That is in large part because Open Office Writer is free, and MS Word is not. And I did title this book that we would be using only free software. So I will be focusing on how to do this in Open Office Writer. But because so many people have MS Word, and there are points where MS Word makes the process simpler, I will also be giving instructions about how to accomplish these tasks in Word. I'm using Word 2003 because that is what I've got. If you have 2007 or higher, the menu instructions won't match though most shortcut keys are the same, but the functions are there. If you don't have Word and don't want to go buy it, I will be showing how to accomplish everything in Open Office. But if you have Word or want to buy it, I'll include steps for that program as well.
Ready? Set? All right, let's go!
Step 1 – Creating the Source File
The most time intensive task in creating ebooks is modifying the source file so that it will process correctly when creating ebooks. Your source file is generally the file you use to initially write your document in, and/or the text containing the print version of the book. However, there are a few things you can do when you first begin writing your work that can save you lots of time later. So pay close attention here, because this is the foundation that allows you to easily format a file for each type of publication, whether it be print, PDF, EPUB, or MOBI.
What You Will Need
Among free word processors, I'm recommending Open Office Writer. You can download it at http://www.openoffice.org. This is the word processor I am using to create this book. But even if you don't plan on using Open Office Writer to create your book, still download it if you don't have it, because we will be using it to create the PDF and EPUB formats. Additionally, if and when you want to create the print book cover for CreateSpace, you will need it then.
You'll also need the expanded "find and replace" functions in Writer. In Writer, click on "Tools" in the menu and select "Extension Manager." In the window that pops open, there will be a text link in the bottom left-hand corner that says, "Get more extensions online" right above the "Help" button. Once the website opens, do a search (on the left-hand side bar) for "Alt Search". After running that search, you should see a selection toward the top of the page which says, "Alternative dialog Find & Replace for Writer." Click on that link, and then click on the "Get Download" button. You can either save it your hard drive and run it from there, or have Open Office open it up in Writer. It will install in Writer. You may need to close Writer and open it back up. You should see an additional entry in "Tools" and "Add Ons..." which has the Alt. and a non-English language (don't worry, the tool itself is in English) as well as an entry in the "Edit" menu under the normal "Find & Replace" that says "Alt. Find & Replace."
There are several other decent free word processors out there. Feel free to use them, but the instructions I'll be providing are for Open Office Writer. You'll need to discover for yourself how to accomplish the same things in those programs, assuming you can.
Also, if you have a copy of Microsoft Word, I'll be giving instructions for that word processor too. Even though it isn't free, so many people have and use it, I felt it necessary to include those instructions.
Styles
Styles are essential in making a file easy to change the formatting. It defines how your text will look when associated with a particular style. Want to change every chapter heading in your document from Arial font to Times New Roman? Easy to do with a style if all your chapter headings are using that style. If they are not, or they are using the same style as the text in the body of the work, then you have to go through the document and manually edit each instance to make such a change.
There are primarily three to four styles you need to concern yourself with:
Normal or Default: These are the default styles for MS Word and Open Office respectively. These styles will contain the bulk of your story's text. You want to make sure all the text in your body uses these. This will especially save you time in setting up the Smashwords' document to upload, because they don't like any special formatting. When you decide to change the story's font to Garamond in preparation to create a print book, if it is all in the Normal or Default style, you only have to change the style to modify the whole story. The more styles you use, the more you have to change.
Heading 1: This is the style you will use for your book's title. Also, if your book is divided into parts, you'll want to use this style for "Part 1," "Part 2," etc. Some people also use this for the chapter headings. That is fine, but I like the chapters as sub-headings under the name of the book or the parts. So...
Heading 2: This is the style you will use for all chapter headings, including any prologues, epilogues, introductions, about the author, glossaries, etc. One of the cool things of using this is you can set the style to automatically insert a page break when you use it, which means each chapter heading will automatically start on a new page. Then when you are ready to create the ebook file, you simply turn that off and all the page breaks are gone.
Heading 3: Another possible style to use is Heading 3, which would mostly be used if you have scene or logical third-level breakdowns within chapters, as I do in this document. You can have these up in the Table of Contents as well, but it is not recommended as it would make them very long. But I'm doing it in this document to make it easy for readers to get to specific areas for reference. Not something one would worry about in a work of fiction, but in a "How to" book, it becomes important.
You don't want any more styles than that. Sometimes a document may need additional styles. For instance, maybe you have a specific way you want scene breaks to appear which differs from the text, because they are centered and you don't want the indent in them, forcing them to be slightly off-centered. So you might create a style based on Normal or Default that makes those adjustments. Then anytime you insert a scene break, you would apply that style to them. But generally you can stick to the above three or four styles. Too many styles starts to complicate the task of adjusting the text later on when we want to create an ebook file.
Creating the Styles
Normal or Default: The good news for the basic story text style is it is already created for you and is the default style that comes up in each program. However, you will want to modify it.
In Open Office Writer, when you open a new document, you'll see a drop-down box in the upper-left corner that says, "Default." To the right of that will be a font style, usually "Times New Roman." And to the left of that is a third drop-down box with a number in it: the font size. The box that says, "Default" is the style box. That is the name of the style you would change to modify all text associated with that style. In this case, you could start writing away and your text would automatically be in that style.
However, you will want to modify the style. Perhaps for editing purposes, you want to use an easier-to-read font, like a Courier font. And you will want to have the style automatically insert the first line indents. Do not use manual tabs as those don't get picked up so easily by some ebook conversion software and are more trouble to modify.
To accomplish this, push the F11 button or click on "Format" in the menu, and select "Styles and Formatting." A window will open displaying a list of styles. Ensure that the left-top button with a paragraph symbol (a backwards P) is pressed in. If not, click on it to ensure it is.
In the window, select the "Default" style and right-click on it. Select "Modify" from the drop-down menu. It will open up a window with a series of tabs that provide various options for setting the formatting of the text. Click on the tab labeled "Indents and Spacing." You will then see a field labeled "First line." To the right of that label is a box with a number in it. I recommend entering a 0.25" (quarter inch) indent. Some prefer 0.5" (half inch), but I find on small ebook screens like a cell phone, that can look too big.
If you wish to change the font, click on the "Font" tab. You will see on the left a list of fonts you can choose. Click on each to see an example of what it will look like in the example box at the bottom of the window. The middle box allows you to select the style of the font. I would keep it at "Regular" for this style unless you really want your whole story to be in italics, bold, or both.
Another tab of particular interest is the "Alignment" tab. Click on it, and you will be able to select whether the text is left aligned, right aligned, centered, or justified. When first writing your story, you don't need to change it from left aligned, but when you go to create the ebook and print book file, this is where you would change it to justified. Once finished setting the style, click the "Okay" button at the bottom-left, and if you have text already typed, it should change to reflect your modifications. Otherwise, when you start typing, it will automatically create the indents, use the font, style, and size selected.
In MS Word, the process is a little different. First, the default paragraph style is called, "Normal." You will probably see a drop-down box labeled "Normal" if you just opened the program, similar to the "Default" label in Open Office Writer, but positioned in a different place. To modify it, click on "Format" in the menu, and select "Styles and Formatting." A window will open on the right, displaying a list of paragraph styles. Each label will be displayed with the settings of that style. To see the settings of any particular style, you hold your cursor over it until a small window pops out listing its settings.
One big difference with MS Word's style list as opposed to Open Office Writer's, is they show a style for every variation of the root style. For instance, if you italicize a few words of text associated with the Normal style, the style list would include a style called "Italics." As these exceptions get more frequent, it can become confusing. However, it does have some advantages over the way Open Office does it. If you want to change all sub-styles of Normal along with the regular text, modifying "Normal" will change them all. But if you only want to change the font size of all italicized Normal text, however, you can modify that one sub-style and the changes there wouldn't affect the rest of the text associated with the style "Normal." Likewise, it makes it easy to select all text associated with it, or clear out unwanted formats, as deleted sub-formats will revert back to their root style's format.
To modify the "Normal" style, put your cursor in some text using the Normal style. It should be highlighted in the Style and Formatting window. If you don't see it, scroll down until you do. Or use the drop-down box at the bottom to change the list selection to a group that will show it ("Available formatting" usually will have it). Move your cursor over the "Normal" style but don't click anything. It might take a second or two, but you should see a narrow box with an arrow pointing down appear on the right side of the "Normal" style. Click on that arrow, then select "Modify" from the list that pops down.
In the window that appears, you will see several formatting selections immediately available. You can change the font, style, size, alignment, among other possible selections. But let's say you wish to change the indent, which by default in Word is zero. Click on the "Format" button at the bottom-left of the window. Select "Paragraphs" from the list that pops up. A window displaying options for paragraph formatting appears. In the "Indention" section of the "Indents and Spacing" tab, you will see one drop-down box labeled "Special." Click that and select "First line" from the list. If you don't like the default indent given in the box to the immediate right of that box, you can change it, as I would, to your desired indent space. Of which, mine would be 0.25". All the other indents and spacing can be left at zero. If there are numbers in them, manually set them to zero.
Now you can click the "Okay" button to save those changes. To make them effective through the document, click on the "Okay" button on the remaining window. You should see the changes you made to the Normal text reflected in any text you've typed to that point, or will show up automatically as you start typing.
Heading 1, 2, or 3: In both programs, the way to access and modify the styles is the same as for the Default and Normal styles. But there are some additional settings of interest in these styles to mention.
Centered text is best centered across the whole page. When you modify these styles, check in the "Indent and Spacing" tabs of both programs to remove any first line indents or other indents. Set those amounts to zero. However, you will generally notice numbers in the spacing sections, giving a number of pixels usually above and below the paragraph. Use this to give some space between the headings and text above and below rather than manually inserting lines. Removing the first line indent will center the text across the whole page instead of set off to the right of center because it is centering from the indent instead of the page's margin. Usually you will want to set Heading 1 to centered. If you use Heading 2 for chapter headings, people go both ways on centering or left setting. But I would remove the indent even on left setting, but that is just my preference.
Another handy feature we mentioned before is the ability to automatically insert page breaks before chapter headings. In Open Office Writer, modify the Header 2 style (or which ever style you are using for the chapter headings) and select the "Text Flow" tab. Under the "Breaks" section, click the check-box labeled "Insert." That will make the "Type" and "Position" drop-down boxes become active. They will probably already be set correctly, but you want to have the "Type" box select "Page" and the position box select "Before." After you select "Okay," it will automatically insert a page break before each paragraph using the style "Header 2."
To accomplish the same thing in Word, modify the Header 2 style. Click the "Format" button and select "Paragraphs." Then click on the "Line and Page Breaks" tab. Click the "Page break before" check box so it is checked. Click the OK button and OK again, and the chapter headings you've associated with this style will insert a page break before each chapter.
When you are ready to prepare the file for the ebooks, you reverse the steps above to remove the page breaks. Now when you need to set the formatting for different versions of your book, you simply edit these styles to make whatever changes you wish. Wanting to send this out to an agent or publisher? Edit to standard format (setting Default or Normal styles to Courier text, 12 pt., double-spaced) and the page settings to 1" margins on 8.5" x 11" paper (we'll get into setting the page size later). Print and ship. Ready to create the print file for the book? Edit the styles to use the font, size, and indents you need. Make the headings look anyway you wish. That's the advantage of using styles. Easy to change the look and formatting for different versions.
Applying the Styles
So, now that they are created, how do you use them? For the Default or Normal text, you simply type. You don't need to do anything special. If you've created a style with a different name, then before you started to type you would want to either select it in the drop-down boxes in the tool bar, or open the style list and click (in MS Word) or double-click (in Writer) and then start typing.
To use the other styles, after typing some text, select it and either select the style from the drop-down list in the toolbar or click on it from the style window list. You should see the selected text change to match the new format.
Let's say I'm starting chapter 2. I would type out, "Chapter 2" and hit return. Then select the text and select "Heading 2" from the drop-down list. The text would change fonts, size, and insert a page break, or whatever I've told the program Heading 2 should look like. Then you click back into the line below the heading, and start writing chapter 2.
Formatting After the Fact
Sometimes you get a book file formatted by someone else, and you want to create an ebook for it. Or you have a book written before you read and understood anything about styles and so it is not formatted to make it easy to change or for ebook conversion programs to pick up chapter headings. What do you do?
First, expect to do some tedious, manual work. For instance, if the chapter headings use the Default or Normal styles like the rest of the story, just changed in size and style to look different (which is the most common situation in formatting a file after the fact), that usually means you are going to have to select each chapter heading and apply the Heading 2 style to it. It is possible under limited circumstances to speed this up.
MS Word's search function gives you more flexibility. So if you are using that program, and the chapter headings are labeled with some type of consistent wording, it is possible to do a search that will catch all of these and apply the Heading 2 style to them.
Let's say each chapter is labeled as "Chapter 1," "Chapter 2," and so on, which is the most likely scenario in which this would work. In MS Word, either push the Ctrl-H button combination, or click on "Edit" in the menu and select "Replace." A window pops open with two fields to fill in. On top is the "Find what" field, and below that is the "Replace with" field. Below that you will see a button labeled "More." Click on that and it will drop the window down and show more options. In the list in the bottom-left corner of the window, click to check off the box labeled "Use wildcards."
Place the cursor in the "Find what" field and type the following text without the quotation marks, "Chapter ??". Click the "Find" tab at the top, and you will only see the "Find what" field and some different options. Click to check off the box labeled "Highlight all items found in:" and the drop down box should say, "Main document." If it doesn't, change it to that setting. The "Find" button will change to a "Find All" button. Click the "Find All" button. Right above that button, it will show the total number of results it found. Ensure it matches the number of chapters it should find. If not, it means that "chapter" with a space and two characters following it appears elsewhere in your document other than the chapter headings, or one of your headings isn't spelled correctly.
Once you know the search results and the number of chapters matches, click on the "Replace" tab and place your cursor in the "Replace with" field. In that field, type the following text without the quotation marks, "^&". Click on the "Format" button at the bottom. Select "Styles" from the list. A window with a list of styles will appear. Scroll down that list until you see "Heading 2" Select it. Under the "Replace with" field, you should now see the text saying "Style: Heading 2."
Now click the "Replace All" button. It will go through the document and find any text that begins with "Chapter " and is followed by one or two characters, then apply the Heading 2 style. Quick and easy. But unfortunately, many books will have either just numbers, or a full title that is different each time. So this is limited to when something consistent can be searched on that will find all instances of a chapter heading.
In Writer, you'll need to use the alternate search function we installed, as all Writer's native search and replace function can do is substitute one style with another. Click on "Edit" in the menu and select "Alt. Find & Replace" right below the normal "Find & Replace" function. When the window appears, click the box to check off "Regular expressions" in the bottom-left box labeled "Options." In the "Search for:" box, enter the following without quotes: "Chapter ??". Click on the "Count" button, and it should list the same number of results as you have chapters. If it is more, it means it is picking up additional instances other than real chapter headings. If it is fewer, one of your chapter headings isn't matching, like maybe you misspelled "chapter" in one or two of them. Correct as necessary. Once you know it will pick up the right paragraphs, place your cursor in the "Replace" box, and type in without the quotes, "\P{Heading 2}". Then click the "Replace all" button. It will then go through your document and apply the Heading 2 style to all the search results.
To remove tabs: in MS Word, using the "Replace" window, clear any formatting in any search or replace field by putting your cursor in that box and clicking on the "No Formatting" button on the bottom-right of the expanded window. Then enter the following into the "Find what" box without the quotes, "^t" and leave the "Replace with" box empty. Click on "Replace all" and all tabs in the document will be removed. You can then set the indents in the style, or alternately, set the "below" spacing to 3 pixels to create a double-spaced paragraph look.
In Open Office Writer, you use the "Find and Replace" function in the Edit menu, or by pressing Ctrl-F. Click the "More Options" button and click the check box for "Regular expressions." In the "Search for" field, enter without quotes, "\t" and leave the "Replace with" field empty. Click on the "Replace All" button. All tabs go bye-bye.
To remove manual page breaks: In MS Word, enter into the "Find what" field of the Replace window, without quotes, "^m" and leave the "Replace with" field empty. Click the "Replace All" button and it is done. In Writer, you do not use the Find-Replace function. Instead, put your cursor in the text. Press "Ctrl-A to select all text in the document. Then click on "Format" in the menu, then select "Paragraph." Click the "Text Flow" tab in the resulting window, then unclick the "Insert" check box in the "Break" section. All page breaks will be removed. Apply automatic page breaks in the Header style used for chapters if needed.
The worst case scenario is when multiple styles are used in the body of the text. You can see what is being used in a document by opening the styles list. In Writer, press F11. Then select "Applied Styles" in the bottom drop-down box. It will display all styles being used in the document. If you find multiple body text styles other than Default, you can merge them doing the following. Press Ctrl-F, and then click on the "More Options" button. Click on the "Search for Styles" check box. In the "Search for" field, you will be able to drop down a list of the styles. Select the one you wish to merge with Default. In the "Replace with" field, drop down that box and select the style you wish to merge it with, in most cases, "Default." Click the "Replace All" button and the alternate body style should disappear from Applied Styles, and that text should now conform to the Default style.
In MS Word, open the styles list by clicking "Edit" in the menu and then selecting "Styles and Formatting." Drop down the box at the bottom of the window and select "Available Formatting." A list will show the styles in use in the document. When figuring out how many styles are in use, keep in mind that each style may be listed several times, once for the standard, once with italics, once perhaps with some other settings. Usually you will see the style and a "+" sign with the modifications after that. So if you have one heading 2 in your document that is italicized while the rest are not, you'll see one entry for the root style, "Heading 2," and another entry that would look something like, "Heading 2+italics." However, the only exception is that the Normal style isn't listed before each sub-style. So instead of seeing "Normal+italics," you'll simply see "italics." Any style that doesn't have a name before it is a sub-style of the Normal style.
To get rid of a sub-style and allow the text it goes with to revert back to the main style, you'd hover your cursor over the style in question until the down arrow appeared on the right of the name. Click the down arrow and select "Delete." In our example above, we would want all the chapter headings to look the same, not some italicized and some not. So to rectify that situation, we would delete that sub-style.
But if we have multiple styles that need to be merged, hover your cursor over the style to get rid of until the down arrow appears. Click the arrow and select "Select all xxxx instances." The xxxx will show the actual number of paragraphs using that style. With all of that style selected, click on the "Normal" style. The Normal style will be applied to the selected text. The unwanted style would disappear from the "Available formatting" list.
Sometimes, however, the formatting is so messed up, you literally need to start over. To do this, we use what is called the "nuclear option." This is accomplished by saving the document as plain text with no formatting, then importing it back in. All text will become the default of the document. The downside is you lose all italics, bold, heading, etc. formatting. So you either need to reapply that manually, or use my system of retaining certain formatting through the process. The process is a bit tedious, though not nearly as tedious as going back and reapplying hundreds of italics and hope you don't miss any. For those brave souls, I've included the instructions for that process in Appendix B.
As you can see, it is best to start out writing the document with these things in mind. You can save a lot of time doing manual formatting to ebooks and even print from the original file. If all chapters have a heading style applied to it from the get go, and all body text uses the default style of the program, the formatting needed to get files prepared for the next steps is minimal. The following steps will assume that you have a source file correctly formatted, and you are ready to start working on creating the other formats.