Html And Css Tricks To Improve The Look Of Your Kindle Book

By Author: Roger Jenkins
Total Articles: 37
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Kindle does a pretty good job of converting Word 97 - 2003 documents if you use the right formatting. But the process isn't perfect. You'll find that some HTML knowledge is very useful for providing a friendly user experience on Kindle.
After you've uploaded your file, Kindle converts it to HTML. You can download the zip file to your computer. Then unzip it to a folder with the same name as Kindle gave the zip folder.
When you open the folder, you will see a list of files. The one you want is the one with the extension.html.
Open this file in a text editor. My favorite is Notepad++. It uses color to identify opening and closing tags, so it's easier to figure out what's gone wrong if you miss a piece of coding.
The HTML Kindle uses is simple once you know what you are looking at. The first thing you will see is the opening HTML tag . This is followed by . There may be a pair of tags. These will then be followed by the document's CSS sheet.
Unless you are an HTML expert, scroll down until you see text that you recognize from your book. This where you'll start comparing the results on the Kindle viewer ...
... with the HTML code.
It's normal to see each paragraph open with something such as if you've chosen to indent paragraphs. Each paragraph must close with .
Tables don't always translate well. This means you may have to manually correct the code so the table views properly. Check to see if Kindle has given the table a border. You will recognize this by the opening code for the table which should look something like this:
Choose a consistent set of values so all tables in the document look the same. For example, you may prefer a heavier line. Increase the table border to "2". Or you may not want a line. Use "0" as your value. Cell padding and cell spacing can also be adjusted. You can center the table by changing the alignment to align="center". Kindle guidelines say to avoid right alignment.
Use basic table HTML. The tag and all the properties available for formatting the table should open the table. The tag must close the table at the very end. Otherwise, it won't display properly.
Kindle inserts after the table tag for each column in the table. Don't touch this.
Then the table formatting begins with . For ease of keeping track of your opening and closing tags, start the table row on a new line.