After your book interior and cover are designed and complete, you can move on to the eBook formatting. The interior file (most likely an Adobe InDesign file) created for your paperback is typically used as the basis for your eBook. If you do not have access to your InDesign file, an eBook can also be created from a Microsoft Word document.

There are two types of eBooks, reflowable and fixed.

Reflowable

A reflowable eBook, the most common, is basically a web page, consisting of HTML and CSS code. The text and images “flow” with the size of the device used to view the eBook and the fonts change in size as well. Because of the reflowable nature of the eBook, not all the formatting created for the print version of your book is supported in the reflowable eBook version. Some examples of unsupported formatting include:

• Exact vertical spacing, ie, starting the text at a specific vertical space on the “page”
• Fonts are typically embedded but not supported on all devices. This means that on some devices, the fonts chosen for the eBook will revert to the default fonts available on the device.
• The size of the fonts used throughout will change because, on all eBook devices, the reader has control over the size of the type. Because of this, exact spacing, hyphenation, line breaks cannot be controlled.
• Images in reflowable eBooks resize to work with the device it is being viewed on as well as the size of the type chosen by the reader. Because of this, the exact placement and size of images are greatly restricted.
• Lines, boxes, and shading behind the text are not supported.
• Reflowable eBooks must include a hyperlinked table of contents. And, to make those work properly, many times, the configuration of the chapter start pages may need to vary from the paperback version.
• Footnotes and endnotes are areas of concern for reflowable eBooks. They must be linked via hyperlink to the reference point AND the reference point MUST link back to the text.

Fixed

A fixed eBook is essentially a static document, similar to a PDF. It is still in an HTML format like the reflowable, but it lacks the “flow”.

Children’s books, art and photography books, and other highly designed books are candidates for fixed eBooks.