Smashwords Formatting

1181 Views 11 Replies 7 Participants Last post by ndrake, Jun 11, 2011

ndrake

Discussion Starter · Jun 11, 2011

Hi all,

Sorry if I'm repeating a subject, but I recently placed five books on Smashwords. Four of the books were approved for the Premium catalog, while one was rejected for hidden bookmarks. OK, so I went to where you insert them (Word 2010) clicked the check box several times and nothing. I don't have a TOC, I was relying on Meatgrinder to pull it together from the word Chapter. I Googled the problem and used the option menu to show hidden bookmarks, still nothing. I had carefully stripped out all formatting and went through each book line by line to make sure they were clean. I do not see anything out of the ordinary at all; just the formatting you would expect. Hmmmmmm

Has anyone else had this problem, and am I missing something. I write professionally for a living but am not a Word expert.

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CraigInOregon

· #2 · Jun 11, 2011

I've not had this problem.

However, if you're relying on Meatgrinder to add your TOC, you're not following the Smashwords Style Guide to the letter, and that's probably your problem. It has to be followed to the letter.

Also, if you're using Word 2010, you must remember to save as .doc, not .docx

Not really knowing all the details, these are my best guesses.

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kurzon

· #3 · Jun 11, 2011

In Word, hit F5 to bring up Go To. There are a number of different options in the Go To box and many of them are bookmarks. Select Bookmark, Endnote, Footnote, Field and Object in turn and hit "Next" to see if it takes you anywhere. If you get a result, delete it.

Mightn't solve your problem, but it's a place to start.

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ndrake

Discussion Starter · #4 · Jun 11, 2011

Great Idea, thanks so much!

N

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TWGallier

· #5 · Jun 11, 2011

Have you tried nuking the manuscript?

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swolf

· #6 · Jun 11, 2011

I had the same problem. My book was denied the premium catalog because of two problems: a price on the cover and a hidden bookmark.

After fixing the cover, I checked the bookmark but couldn't find anything wrong. I resubmitted, and sent Smashwords an email letting them know I couldn't find the error they were telling me was there.

Didn't hear back from them, but the book was approved this morning.

Seems like the meatgrinder is spitting out errors when there aren't any.

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ndrake

Discussion Starter · #7 · Jun 11, 2011

Thanks again, I was wondering if it was putting out things in error. I ended up putting the book in Notepad and then back into Word and reformatted. I guess I will find out if that works. Again thanks, this is what I really like about these groups; everyone is so willing to help!

N

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Patty Jansen

· #8 · Jun 11, 2011

Nuke it, nuke it, nuke it!

In my previous incarnation as non-fiction editor of a popular scientific newsletter, I made a habit of nuking (i.e. importing a document in Notepad, saving as TXT and re-importing in the DTP software), because a document that has had any kind of formatting applied to it always has residual crap that you can't find within the text editor.

Hint: keep you master document as plain as possible. This is really important and save you a lot of heartache later. I've gone to the extreme where I'm not even using italics to fomat, because it gets lost if you have to submit through web-based forms. I use underscores instead, and have a macro that converts them to italics if needed.

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Carl246

· #9 · Jun 11, 2011

ndrake said:
Hi all,

Sorry if I'm repeating a subject, but I recently placed five books on Smashwords. Four of the books were approved for the Premium catalog, while one was rejected for hidden bookmarks. OK, so I went to where you insert them (Word 2010) clicked the check box several times and nothing. I don't have a TOC, I was relying on Meatgrinder to pull it together from the word Chapter. I Googled the problem and used the option menu to show hidden bookmarks, still nothing. I had carefully stripped out all formatting and went through each book line by line to make sure they were clean. I do not see anything out of the ordinary at all; just the formatting you would expect. Hmmmmmm

Has anyone else had this problem, and am I missing something. I write professionally for a living but am not a Word expert.

Hi Ndrake, I had the same thing happen to me. It was telling me that there were book marks to delete but I couldn't find any. What I did in the end (which solved it for me) was to copy it, open up word seperately and pasted it. I then looked at the book mark area again and there was some to delete, after I deleted them I tried smashwords again and it went up, picking the chapter headings up as it did so.

Hope that helps.

Carl

ps MS Word is an enigma wrapped in a mystery, and can never be fully understood by the likes of us mere mortals. lol

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CraigInOregon

· #10 · Jun 11, 2011

Carl246 said:
ps MS Word is an enigma wrapped in a mystery, and can never be fully understood by the likes of us mere mortals. lol

Funny, but silly.

I can get MS Word to purr like a kitten for me. You just have to take control of the thing, even at the most basic levels...

The Smashwords Style Guide outlines one way to do that.

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Carl246

· #11 · Jun 11, 2011

Also, make sure you have this program on your computer desktop, it's free: http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/

Smashwords goes by this software, so when you've uploaded your book get the epub file of said book and check it out with this software. If it looks perfect it will go through, if it looks wrong it won't and needs to be fixed. Whenever it hasn't gone right for me it usually shows a paragraph or two that are in a different font size. This allows you to know if it's going to be rejected ahead of time so that you can fix whatever the problem is and re-upload.

All the best.

Carl

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ndrake

Discussion Starter · #12 · Jun 11, 2011

Thanks to all of you; you guys are great! I will try putting it in Word as you said in the morning, it was a long day at work and now it's time for some wine!

N

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