FAQs

Publisher/Author FAQ

If a publisher wants to get colored fonts for smart phone devices, is it possible to get color fonts on mobi or ePub?

Q: What do we do for footnotes? Do we link to them?

Yes, footnotes can be linked. It requires generating of HTML tags. Since eReaders do not have the concept of static page numbering, we recommend that all footnotes to be generated at the end of the book and so they become more like end notes. Once the reader clicks on a note, it takes to the end note page and when he/she clicks back, it comes back to the page he/she was reading!! This requires manual work of creating tags and referencing them to the end of the book. So if a book has lots of footnotes, we may have to charge them additionally.

Q: How do we handle sidebars/breakouts?

Unlike the paper books, the e-Readers generate content for which the font size can be adjusted as a reader preference. (No more additional revenue for Large print edition!) In order to have a good reading experience, it is most appropriate to render small sidebars as images rather than content. It is not possible to have the certain content being laid out in exact style (such as text wrapping) but we accommodate the most enjoyable reading experience by rendering the sidebars as images in most feasible location on the page. The benefit is that it allows the original font style to be maintained and also the actual content of the book to remain in the original flow. Also, with the Kindle having the speech to text in beta stage, it is best to leave the sidebars as images otherwise, the speech to text flow would not make sense to the reader. For cases where the sidebar or separate reading section item is almost half the page, we position it as a separate section (remember that eReaders do not have set pages).

Q: If a publisher asks, we have books with text on images, is it possible to render that?

Yes, but text and image would both need to be rendered as a single image. This would imply that font size adjustment, footnotes and other text editing is not possible. eReaders do not allow two layers of rendering as yet.

Q: What formats does eBookHands do conversion in?

Being a technology company with over 7 years of technology experience we can determine a process in any input format. Currently our offering is for following format.
Input: PDF, Quark, InDesign, Text, Word. We work with partners for physical paper books that require scanning.
Output: mobi, ePub, docbookxmls, pdb, .lit and others as needed.

Q: If a publisher wants to get colored fonts for smart phone devices, is it possible to get color fonts on mobi or ePub?

The source file is an HTML file which allows for fonts to be colored. However, most eReader devices lose all text rendering of colored text. So if there is a bold text which is blue in color, when we code it to reflect blue, an eReader device would not only not show the blue text (as reader devices are currently black and white) but would also not render the bold formatting. So in order to render color, eBookHands would need to create separate files.