~Converting Your Book File to Microsoft Word~
Dick Claassen
 | Before you can successfully format your book file, you will first need to make sure your book is one hundred percent Microsoft Word. If you originally wrote your book in a word processor that was not Microsoft Word 97 or later, (Mac users, Word 98 or later), read the information on this page. If your book was originally written in MS Word, you can go directly to the formatting page. |
First some preliminary guidelines.
DONT's: Don't send us your book file as a Word Perfect, AppleWorks, Claris Works, or Microsoft Works file. We're not even too crazy about accepting Microsoft Word 6 files. Books originally written with any of these applications could lead to big trouble down the road when you try to save them as Microsoft Word 97 or newer files. And if you've used any other word processor application not listed here like WriteNow or PaperClip, don't use those, either. More on this in a minute...
DO's: Do send us your book files that were originally written with Microsoft Word 97, Microsoft Word 2000, or Microsoft Word XP, Mac users should use the Mac versions of Word which would be Microsoft Word 98, or Microsoft Word 10. Kathryn and I run Awe-Struck with our mighty Macs, so we are very supportive of all authors who use Macs.
What can I, as an author, do if I've originally written my book in something other than MS Word? All is not lost! You can successfully convert your non Word file into an MS Word file. Keep in mind that Word has no idea how to handle code that's specific to WP. Then when we open your WP file you've saved from WP as a Word file, we all too often see junk code or junk characters embedded in the text. There are two possible ways to fix this. One way is to show invisibles (more on this later), then go through the whole book line by line to delete the junk. But that doesn't always work. And it's very labor intensive. Needless to say, we at Awe-Struck don't have the time to do this kind of an edit, even if it does work. If I find that the file displays Word Perfect "unwantables", I'll send the file back to you to fix. So you will need to decide which approach you want to take. Sometimes the file is so goofed up it can't be fixed unless you first save it as a text file (because saving as a simple text file will delete non Word code). Then you will have to go through the whole book to put back italics and centering (since font attributes like italics are unfortunately lost when you save the file as a text file). You may also see the junk characters I just mentioned, but at this text file stage you will be able to permanently delete unwanted junk. Again, that kind of "fix" is the responsibility of the author.
Please understand that we are not against someone using these applications. We only ask that you don't send us book files that are in these file formats . MS Word is a pretty robust application, but it can't cleanly open every possible file from every word processor out there. That would be an unrealistic hope. We have found that the books originally made with the applications we've listed as troublesome will most likely give us problems when you save them on your end as Microsoft Word files. If this is the case, you will have to save your file as a text file and then put all the formatting back. I know this sounds like a tough way to go, but it's the only way to kill WP code that Word can't handle.
One important note: for you Mac users who don't want to buy MS Office in order to get MS Word, there is a new application available that's very close to Word. That is, the files can be opened in MS Word without errors or loss of attributes. This application, Mariner Write, is a dandy of a program and it's only $80, far cheaper than the very expensive MS Office. If you should use this program I will be able to open any file you send me from it because Awe-Struck owns Mariner Write. Just be very sure that you download the very newest version. They recently fixed a major bug at my insistence, and now the program runs like...well...MS Word. :-)
Let's cut to the chase! If you have written your book in Word 97 or later (PC users), or Word 98 or later (Mac users), you can be quite sure that all will be well when we open your files. If you have originally written your book in any of the applications we consider troublesome, you first will have to do the following before sending us the file--
WHAT TO DO if you have originally written your book with any application other than Microsoft Word:
If you find you can't delete bad code by revealing invisibles, and then deleting the code and markers you see--
first, save your book file as a TEXT file; click for a how-to.
Study the steps in the how-to. It will show you how to successfully change your non Word file into a pure Word file.
If your file is in MS Word, either originally or from a successful conversion, the text will need to be properly formatted. (When formatting it's very useful to reveal invisibles in the document.)
To format, first, reveal INVISIBLES; click for a how-to.
Study the steps in the how-to. It will show you how to successfully reveal invisible markers.
Once you have revealed the previously invisible markers you can more effectively format your document.
Go to How To Format Your Book page
| What are "invisibles"? They are format markers you don't see in the normal document view. Revealing them gives you the power to more easily make formatting changes. You will be able to see things like paragraph markers and tabs, and you will also be able to directly see each space which will appear as a "dot". |
 |
| To make the illustration above, I first opened Jina Bacarr's book, "The Kennedy Girls". Then I clicked the button that looks like a fancy backwards 'P'. Once clicked, all the invisible markers appeared. In this not particularly clear web graphic you can clearly see all the paragraph markers (look inside the red circle to see what these markers look like), but you will have to look hard to see the dots between each word. These dots are SPACE markers. (This is much clearer in Word.) You can also see things like TAB markers in invisible view, but there are none in this particular illustration. The advantage to working in invisible view is that you can directly delete the markers, and this makes it much easier to format the text. Invisible view is especially useful when you get paragraph markers in the middle of sentences. I know this sounds strange, but this kind of thing comes to me from files that were made in something other than Word. And this particular error breaks sentences right in the middle of them and wraps the last into the next line below. When you are finished working in invisible view, simply click the paragraph buttton and you'll go back to the normal view. |
| Saving any file from any word processor application as a text file is very easy. Even though the illustration below was made while saving from Word 10 for the Mac, all Save As dialogue boxes look pretty much the same. |
 |
| I made this illustration above from Microsoft Word 10 (part of Microsoft Office 10). To get to this point, go to File, then Save As. A dropdown menu (above) will open. You have two choices when saving as a TEXT file. Do not choose "Text Only with Line Breaks"! That will put paragraph markers at the end of every line and we will have a real mess on our hands. To avoid this, just choose "Text Only" as shown. Notice that this little demo file, titled "This is a test", is a Microsoft Word document, but the dropdown menu shows you that I'm choosing to save it as a Text Only file. If you were saving from the Word Perfect application, you would not see the ".doc" extension on the file name since extensions are specific to the type of application you're saving from. IMPORTANT: After you have saved the document as a TEXT file, CLOSE the file. Then REOPEN the TEXT file IN MICROSOFT WORD! You will see that you are left with a very simple looking file. Even though things like italics and centering arenow gone, so is the code that confuses Microsoft Word. (And this is a very good thing. <g>) So now it's time to put the attributes and formatting, like italics and centering, back. Once you fix attributes and formatting you should save the file as a Microsoft Word file. Also save it as an RTF file. |
|
|