Chapter 8

Creating MOBI or EPUB Files with Calibre

In This Chapter

Saving your manuscript as an HTML file

Turning your e-book into MOBI and EPUB files using Calibre

Viewing your e-book on an e-reader

Most e-readers can, theoretically, handle PDF files, but these files may not display well on the small, and often black-and-white, e-reader screen. The two most common file types that e-readers use are MOBI (for the Kindle and for MobiPocket reader software) and EPUB (for everything else).

The good news is that after your manuscript is ready to convert into MOBI format, you can simply convert it to EPUB format, too. Both file types are based on HTML code. The not-so-good news is that it takes a few steps to convert a Microsoft Word document into MOBI and EPUB files — it isn’t quite as simple as PDF conversion (as described in Chapter 6).

Certain software programs, such as Adobe InDesign, allow you to save files in EPUB format, though you still need to use other software for the MOBI conversion. If you use Word, you have no option to save your manuscript as an EPUB file; instead, you save it as an HTML file and then convert it to both EPUB and MOBI by using another piece of software.

In this chapter, I walk you through the steps to save your Word document in HTML format, ready for conversion to MOBI and EPUB. I also explain how to use the free Calibre software to turn an HTML file into both a MOBI file and an EPUB file.