Ray McCarthy
Sentient Marmite: The Truth may make you fret.
I use the free Notepad++ (Windows, OSX, Linux) which is highly configurable multi-tab (for each file) with ability to do documents or multiple file Search or Search and Replace. It can do programmed Pattern based searches and more. But it does no formatting at all. This is actually good. It does have a Word count and Spell checker. I also use a free Android text editor.
The only really important mark up is Bold and Italic
Very many word-processors can auto-format by some method. Pasting in a document copied from the text editor, or sometimes insert from file. You can usually "autoformat" an entire document or a highlighted section. What your word-processor or whatever does may be similar to "format as you type", so look at settings
*Bold* -> Bold
_Italic_ -> Italic
The reason this works in almost all word-processors is that this was used in the days of typed on paper manuscripts. Traditionally the only formatting accepted from an author. Of course Bold Italic is allowed too.
Other formatting.
Often a block of text inserted or pasted can be automatically made into a table. Later you can change or remove border. If not too wide, tables do work in a Kindle. Usually a different menu option in used after selecting a block of text.
To make a table:
Put a single "enter" (newline) after each row.
On each line just separate items with a comma, same number of items per line:
Name, Sex, Colour, Age
Jane, F, green, 14
Bill, M, , 12
Jill, F, red, 11
Mary, F, red,
Notice we can leave out items if we put the comma in the correct place
Kindle / eBook creation
Use H1 for chapters, H2 next and then H3 in the Word-processor. Save As or Export as HTML for best results. If you have set the image parameters properly an image can even be inline in a row of text, inline in the page or have text flowing. Some kindles or other eBook readers may only do Roman/Latin font, you can screen capture a section in Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew etc and paste it back in as an image.
Keep the original text format, intermediate Word-processor version (Word, Open Office, Libre Office) and HTML versions. Remember to copy all the image files to the eBook Creation folder manually or the images will be missing. I use Mobi Creator from HTML files to make Kindle compatible .prc files.
The only really important mark up is Bold and Italic
Very many word-processors can auto-format by some method. Pasting in a document copied from the text editor, or sometimes insert from file. You can usually "autoformat" an entire document or a highlighted section. What your word-processor or whatever does may be similar to "format as you type", so look at settings
*Bold* -> Bold
_Italic_ -> Italic
The reason this works in almost all word-processors is that this was used in the days of typed on paper manuscripts. Traditionally the only formatting accepted from an author. Of course Bold Italic is allowed too.
Other formatting.
- Only do a single "enter key" press between paragraphs, select autowrap in the Text Editor and ONLY put a single carriage return to force a new line. Double line spacing and paragraph indents required are never done in the text file, only the word-processor file required by a publisher. Use " for dialogue and ' for a nested quote in dialogue to avoid confusion with each other and apostrophes.
- Often a heading will be auto-created if you do add two "returns"
- Dash, not hyphen, just put two hyphens (i.e. to indicate speech interrupted or the old fashioned equivalent pair instead of ( and ) or a pair of, commas, indicating a parenthesis.
- Never space a hyphen it might turn into a dash.
- The "something" or 'something' will be converted to opening and closing quotes, but make sure ALWAYS a space before an opening quote and after a closing quote.
- The ' in a word with no space will become an apostrophe
- Write fractions as half, quarter as 1/2 and 1/4 etc looks bad and only some autoconvert to superscript & subscript or single fractional characters.
- a single * at the start of a line followed by a single space might become an indented bullet point.
Often a block of text inserted or pasted can be automatically made into a table. Later you can change or remove border. If not too wide, tables do work in a Kindle. Usually a different menu option in used after selecting a block of text.
To make a table:
Put a single "enter" (newline) after each row.
On each line just separate items with a comma, same number of items per line:
Name, Sex, Colour, Age
Jane, F, green, 14
Bill, M, , 12
Jill, F, red, 11
Mary, F, red,
Notice we can leave out items if we put the comma in the correct place
Kindle / eBook creation
Use H1 for chapters, H2 next and then H3 in the Word-processor. Save As or Export as HTML for best results. If you have set the image parameters properly an image can even be inline in a row of text, inline in the page or have text flowing. Some kindles or other eBook readers may only do Roman/Latin font, you can screen capture a section in Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew etc and paste it back in as an image.
Keep the original text format, intermediate Word-processor version (Word, Open Office, Libre Office) and HTML versions. Remember to copy all the image files to the eBook Creation folder manually or the images will be missing. I use Mobi Creator from HTML files to make Kindle compatible .prc files.
