I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “I had hoped to find someone willing to talk about Reflowable Text today!”
Well, all your dreams have come true!
If you’re not sure what reflowable text is, consider the opposite:
If you ever try to read an ebook without reflowable text, it’s a frustrating experience. It’s like reading a pdf on your phone. You have to enlarge the image, slide to the left and right to see all the text, slide to the bottom, look around, zoom out, then zoom in. It’s frustrating.
Reflowable text is when your ebook flows smoothly from one page to the next, allowing the text to fill in the gaps and spaces (filling your screen without losing text). That means if you enlarge the text, the sentence wraps around at the end of a line and continues on, still filling the screen (allowing less text on your screen without losing any text). The opposite is true when you make your text smaller–the text gets smaller and fills in the gaps, and you then have more text on the page.
If an ebook has reflowable text, it’s easy to read and enlarge the text and more. That’s the way an ebook is supposed to be.
When an ebook does not have reflowable text, then the page just looks like something out of a print book. You can’t enlarge the text (without zooming in), and it’s like looking at a picture. You have to slide the screen left and right to get it all in.
Unfortunately, a lot of ebooks don’t use reflowable text. If you create an ebook without reflowable text, you end up with a very unprofessional looking ebook, and your readers can even struggle to read your book.
For more information on reflowable text, check out this site.
Now, most of us never have to worry about this. However, I have found a number of indie authors have books without the proper reflowable text. I can think of two authors who actually paid someone to format their ebooks, and the paid formatter actually produced an ebook without reflowable text. So, let me, in this short blog, point you to a few options for how to create books with reflowable text.
First, never, ever, ever use a PDF for your ebook design. Just don’t. PDFs are designed to maintain their look and feel–they will not reflow properly.
Here are a few options for creating ebooks with reflowable text:
1) Vellum
Vellum is perhaps one of the best ebook creation tools out there. However, it is MAC only and very expensive.
2) Scrivener
Scrivener is an app for writers. It’s worth the investment of picking up this program. While Scrivener is not specifically designed for creating ebooks, it does a nice job of it (not incredible, but not bad). You can use the ebook file that you create with Scrivener anywhere you need an epub or mobi. To find out more about Scrivener, check out these links: Link #1 and Link #2.
3) Amazon KDP
Amazon will take your MS Word document and convert it. I will admit, I’ve never tried this. I’m just not sure how it would look. So, if you want to use them, check the ebook over really well. The ebook they create for you is designed, however, just for Amazon. To find out more about setting up your ebook on Amazon, check out this link.
4) Pressbooks
Pressbooks is a pay-per-book option where you can set your book up on their site (using a WordPress-like theme) and then export it to print or ebook. They have some nice options, and I’ve used them myself. I would check out their free option before paying, just to make sure you like what you get. You can use the files they produce anywhere. To find out more about publishing your ebook with Pressbooks, check out this blog.
5) Draft2Digital
Draft2Digital (D2D) is my recommendation for the site to use if you are looking for simple. There are a lot of perks to using D2D. One of the advantages is they allow you to create the file and use it anywhere. I would check out my blog on them. They are a great way to go!
5) Jutoh
Draft2Digital (D2D) is my recommendation for the site to use if you are looking for features and versatility. You can check out my blog on them here and get a 30% off coupon as well.
I hope this was a help to you. Ebooks are meant to have a certain look and feel to them. If you are hiring a book formatter to create your ebook, make sure they are able to produce in reflowable text (if they don’t know what “reflowable text” is… look elsewhere).
Shawn
9 responses to “Ebooks and Reflowable Text”
Good info, Shawn!
Thanks, Felicia!
And any book with headings, for example, anthologies and poetry and non-fiction, should have active TOCs. It’s surprising how many don’t (or have page numbers because they’ve uploaded the pdf for the pb).
It is too bad. I think there are many paid formatters who are just after a quick buck. It’s also not common knowledge that this is even an issue unless you’re in the self publishing world. Hopefully this saves some people some stress down the road. 🙂
Btw, it’s been a while. How are you? We didn’t connect this year for nanowrimo. Did you do it this year?
I lost this comment! I think I did it, but the result wasn’t a story I published – maybe later, maybe not.
This year, I’m going in full-steam ahead. I have a plan to do two novellas.
Nice! I’m hoping to dive into a new series I’ve been working on in my mind. They’ll be shorter and hoping to finish off at least the first two in the series. We’ll have to connect up for it!
sounds like a plan
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