Making an ePub eBook with sub-chapters.

Wow, that took a while.

I spent way to long looking for a simple way to make an ePub formatted eBook. anyways this is the final way I chose to make the eBook that has sub-chapters.

Pre-Requisites

  1. Separate .xhtml files for each chapter and sub-chapter. (I used html2xhtml to convert my faulty html files to a cleaner .xhtml  version)
  2. A custom .css stylesheet
  3. All images used in the eBook including a cover
  4. eCub for creating the ePub book.
  5. Calibre for testing and editing odds and ends (Calibre installs an eBook viewer but for some reason does not place a shortcut on the desktop)
  6. Validate EPUB a great place to validate the final ePub.

Steps taken

  1. Place all .xhtml, image, .css files into a project folder of your choice
  2. Open eCub
  3. Enlarge the window because otherwise some of the options are hiding
  4. Select new
  5. Type in a Title, Identifier and Author and press next
  6. Set your book name and browse to find your project folder location and press next
  7. on the import dialog select to create from existing test and press next
  8. leave the default settings and press next
  9. after the scan for the found content press next
  10. choose your existing eBook cover from the drop downand press next
  11. Set the order of your chapters using the arrows underneath the files tab in the main window of eCub
  12. if you have any sub-chapters select them and change their level from one to two using the level selections on the bottom left of the main window place them under the parent chapter
  13. make sure the images and .css files are located in the files list
  14. Select compile
  15. The final eBook will be located in the project folder
  16. Test the eBook using the eBook viewer from calibre
  17. You can make many more small changes and edits  with eCub or Calibre check them out
  18. Visit Threepress Consulting to test the final product with their Validate ePub tool.

There are way to many useless programs out there that do not give the choice to create sub-chapters, or just don’t work.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.