If you hang around people who author eBooks you’ll find grumbling about the compilers that turn Word documents into eBooks. Most of the grumbling reflects their use of a modern word processor as a typewriter, as they insert tabs, multiple carriage returns (enter key) and hard page breaks to format their books. They imbed all sorts of format characters and then don’t understand why the compilers don’t like this stuff.
At the same time, anyone who has been in the publishing business knows that the proper way to format documents is without tabs and multiple carriage returns. Microsoft Word revolutionized desktop publishing when it brought styles and stylesheets to the desktop. Most editors don’t write a word until they have styles created to format them. Apparently most of the world didn’t get the memo on this as few seem to use styles or stylesheets.
To the rescue, however, is Heather Marie Adkins, woman extraordinaire, the same woman whose The Temple I just discussed just yesterday. This morning she released a five-part series on using styles to properly format a document. It might be the most important blog post you ever read. Find it here: