Sigil-Create an EPUB

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This tutorial shows you how to take your manuscript and turn it into an EPUB ebook. Of

course, you can do all kinds of other things with Sigil, but creating your first EPUB is a goodway to see the features of Sigil.

Creating an EPUB can be done with a the following steps:

Loading your document into Sigil

Adding Author and Title informationAdding a cover

Adding a table of contentsChecking your EPUB for errors

If you already have an HTML or EPUB file you can skip this step.

If you are starting with a document created by one of the many available word processorprograms, the first thing you need to do is convert your document to HTML so that you can

import it into Sigil.

Sigil only supports importing HTML files since converting from other formats is actually quitespecialized and best left to other tools.

Although conversion is not part of Sigil, here are some suggestions for converting files toHTML:

Microsoft Word file: use the MS Word menu option File→Save As Filtered

HTML. Or use the MS Word Macro @ MobileRead. Both approaches try to reduce theamount of extra code included by MS Word so that your HTML file is cleaner and

simpler to edit in Sigil. You really want to have your code as clean as possible.Text file: try renaming the file to end in .html, or load into into MS Word,

OpenOffice or LibreOffice and save as HTML. Text files usually don't convert well

due to difficulty in identify the start and end of paragraphs.RTF file: try the rtf2epub tool at http://code.google.com/p/epub-tools/downloads/list.

PDF file: use Adobe Acrobat File→Save as HTML menu option, or use

Sigil User Guide0.6.0 draft

Create an EPUB http://web.sigil.googlecode.com/git/files/OEBPS/Text/tutorial_create_...

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http://pdftohtml.sourceforge.net/. PDF files usually don't convert well since they werebuilt for a fixed layout. Avoid if possible.

Mobi file: Unzip the .azw or .prc into a directory. Then open the HTML file in Sigil.

When you first start Sigil you will be shown a screen with several windows. The BookBrowser window is on the left (which is used to access all the files in your EPUB), an editor

Window is in the center and set to Book View (to edit your book as it appears), and a Tableof Contents window is on the right (to show you any chapter titles you've defined).

See the User Interface chapter for more details.

To open your EPUB or HTML file, use the menu option File→Open:


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Select the file you want to open from your file manager.

You will now see your file in the Book Browser window under the Text folder on the left,

and the file will be opened in the Book View editor in the middle with its filename showingon the tab header:


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Your HTML file is now part of the EPUB ebook. From now on you you are editing yourEPUB and not just an HTML file.

If your file includes any images or stylesheets, Sigil will attempt to load them as well.

When converting your file to EPUB or loading an EPUB Sigil may add some necessary details andre-organize your files into standard folder names but it won't change your text.

Now that you've loaded your file, you should save your new EPUB. You should do this right

after loading your file to make sure there are no problems.

To save your EPUB, use the menu option File→Save As:

Enter a name for you file in your file manager. It will be given a .epub extension since it

will be saved as an EPUB file.

You can now use the button to save your EPUB at any time – and you should save often.

To make sure your ebook conforms to EPUB standards, you need to add a bit more

information.

If you need to make any basic changes to your text, you can just edit your book in the Book


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View editor.

To open specific pages in your book, just double-click them in the Book Browser.

You can then follow the remaining steps to create a complete EPUB ebook. You can alwaysmake more changes once you've created your EPUB – read through the User Guide for more

details on editing, working with files, images and formatting.

In addition to the actual content of your book, EPUB files also contain information that isuseful for your readers such as book details like Title and Author.

To add details about your book (called metadata) to your EPUB, use the button or the

menu option Tools→Metadata Editor:

The Metadata Editor window will be displayed:


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You can now add your Title, Author, and Language to your book:

Title: the full title of your bookAuthor: for example enter Carroll, Lewis

Language: the language the book was written in

Once you have updated the information, you can select OK and then save your EPUB


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again.

You may have noticed that there is a lot of room for other values in the Metadata Editor. Only theTitle, Author, and Language are required for EPUBs, but if you want to add more values using the

Add Basic or Add Role buttons you can.

See the Metadata Editor chapter for more details.

Every book should have a cover image, and Sigil can help you add one to your EPUB. You'll

need to have an existing cover image available to use (and have permission to use it).

In order to define an EPUB cover you will need to import the image into your EPUB, create

a file to hold your cover, and mark the image and file as covers as described below.

To select the image you want as your cover, use File→New→Add Existing Files:

Select your cover image from your file manager.

Your EPUB now contains your cover image:


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You can double click your image file to display it in the main window.

However, there are still a few steps needed to identify it as a cover.

You need to create an HTML file and insert your cover image into the file.

Create a new HTML file in your EPUB by right clicking on a file name in the Book Browser

and selecting the menu option Add Blank Section:

A new HTML file will be created in your Text folder:


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Rename the file so you know what it is by right-clicking on the filename and selecting

Rename from the menu:

Enter cover.xhtml as the new name (you can just type cover – the extension will not

change by default):


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Move the file to the top of the Text folder since a cover should be the first file of a book. You

can drag-and-drop the file to its new position (click on the filename and hold the mousedown while you move it to its new position):

Now that we have an HTML file, we need to put your cover image into it.

Double-click on the cover.xhtml file to open it in the Book View editor window (you will

see cover.xhtml as the title of the open tab in the editor window), click somewhere in theblank window to start editing.


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Use Edit→Insert Image to select your image from the Images folder, or use the Insert

Image icon on the toolbar:

This will display the Insert Images window:


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Select your image from the list of images in your EPUB.

Your cover image will now appear in the file:


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Now that you have both a cover image and an HTML file with a cover in it, you need to

mark both as Covers to make sure the various ereaders can recognize the cover:

To mark the HTML file as a cover right-click on cover.xhtml in the Book Browser

window, select the menu item Add Semantics, then choose the Cover entry:


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And to mark the image as a cover image right-click on the cover image in the Book Browserwindow, select the menu item Add Semantics, then choose the Cover entry. You must set

both the image and the HTML file to type Cover to make sure all ereaders recognize thecover.


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Your EPUB now has a cover defined (if you look at the Add Semantics menu again for thefiles you will see the Cover items now have a checkmark next to them).

You should save your book if you haven't already.

See the Images chapter for more details.

EPUBs support an interactive Table of Contents (abbreviated as TOC) to help readers findtheir way around your ebook. In an EPUB, the TOC is stored in a separate file in your book

and readers can usually open it with a menu entry or button on their ereader at any time. Youdon't have to directly edit the TOC file since Sigil provides a way to generate it automatically

from your ebook.

Sigil will display the current TOC in a separate window. If you haven't defined any text as a

chapter heading, then the Table of Contents window will be blank – except for the Startplaceholder text and two buttons for generating a new Table of Contents:


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In order to tell Sigil what your chapter headings are you need to highlight the text in yourfiles (e.g. Chapter 1) and then click on the Paragraph Format icon (which will probably list

Normal on the button if you have selected some standard text) at the top of the Book View

window:


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Select Heading 1 for a top level heading. This will mark the the text as a heading at level 1

– you can see that the format of the text and the dropdown menu has changed:


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When you click on a heading in your text the Paragraph Format menu will change to show theheading level.

You should now mark all the chapter headings in your document in the same way.

Once you have marked all your chapter headings you can click the Generate Table Of

Contents button on the Table of Contents window:

This will open the Heading Selector dialog:

The dialog allows you to mark which headings to include or not include in your Table of

Contents. Click OK when you are finished.

The Table of Contents window has now been updated to show your current TOC – which

includes the headings you selected:


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You should save your book if you haven't already.

You can also use Sigil to create create an inline TOC page using the Generate Inline HTML TOC

button. This is not required or usually used in EPUBs, but if you convert to other formats or wanta fancy TOC then its available.

See the Table of Contents chapter for more details.

This is an optional step – you can skip this if you don't want separate files for your chapters.

If you loaded an HTML file into Sigil, this usually means all of your text and chapters are in

one large file. This is okay, but the standard practice with EPUBs is to put each chapter inyour book into a separate HTML file. This makes it much easier to edit.

Since most ereaders start a new file in the EPUB on a new page, it means your chapters will alsostart on a new page.

The easiest way to split your book into one chapter per file is to do a bulk update by marking

all the locations of your chapters and then have Sigil split at those points.


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You should save your book now, in case you want to undo any changes.

For each chapter heading in your book, click just to the left of the chapter heading so that

your cursor is at the start of the line:

Now select Edit→Insert Chapter Marker to insert a marker in your text:

The marker will appear as a horizontal line:


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Do this for every chapter in your book.

Once you have inserted all your Chapter Markers into your file, you need to run Edit→Split

at Chapter Markers:

Your book will now be split into separate files as shown in the Book Browser:


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You can rename the chapters, and you should save your book once you have made your

changes.

See the Splitting and Merging chapter for more details.

Your book is almost ready. You just need to check your EPUB to see if there are any issuesthat might cause problems for ereaders. This can range from missing or extra files, or broken

links, etc. This may be unlikely for your first file, but its good practice to do the checks tomake sure your EPUB is standard.

To check or validate your book, use File→Validate. This will open a window just belowyour document and list any problems that were found. For instance, if you forgot to enter the

Title of the book in the Metadata Editor you might see:

It can be difficult to interpret exactly what the issues are sometimes, but you should readthrough them to see if there is anything that you recognize and can fix.

Once you've fixed all the errors Validate will confirm everything is okay:


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See the Validate and Clean chapter for more details.

All you need to do now is save your EPUB and you're done. Congratulations!

Table of contents

CoverTitlepageCopyrightIntroduction

What's NewAbout SigilAbout EPUB

InstallationWindowsMacLinux

FeaturesUser InterfacePreferencesOpening and Saving FilesBook ViewCode ViewPreview ViewBook BrowserTable of Contents (TOC)MetadataValidationSpellcheckImagesSpecial CharactersSplitting and MergingFind & ReplaceSaved SearchesClipsClipboard HistoryLinks and IDsStylesIndexes


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ReportsExternal Editors

TutorialsCreate an EPUBEdit an EPUBUse Regular ExpressionsCreate Links and FootnotesUse StylesheetsInclude Custom FontsTips

FAQCommon QuestionsWhere to Get HelpStarting SigilUsing SigilFormatting and Styles

Contributing to Sigil

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Sigil-Create an EPUB