A REFLOWABLE LAYOUT EBOOK?
A reflowable layout ebook allows fonts to be resized, and the book then reorganizes itself. The contents of each page will seamlessly “flow.” The words adapt to fit the parameters of the reading device when the font size is changed. Also, whether reading in portrait or landscape, text and images will fill up the page as specified by the user. Reflowable ebooks work much better on all devices.
STEPS IN THE REFLOWABLE EBOOK CREATION PROCESS
Step 1: Pick a book
This step is obvious. Picking out a book is a personal choice. However, there are a few things to consider, which you may want to read about in Finding Books to Digitize and What’s in a Copyright?
Step 2: Scan the book
Converting printed text into computer readable text starts with scanning the physical pages. Most books we scan are volumes that we do not wish to destroy in the process. Therefore, the scanner of choice has been a non-destructive scanner. Our House Treasures uses a Tenrec scanner — see post From Printed Page to Digital Image.
Step 3: OCR the book
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is required to convert text from images accumulated during the scanning process (Step 2). The OCR program is critical. If the program inaccurately interprets characters in a text, substantial corrections are needed during the proofreading processes. Our House Treasures researched various OCR programs. We settled upon ABBYY Finereader for our general purposes. Details about the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) process coming soon in our blog, Going from Text in an Image to Editable Text.
Step 4: Structure the book layout
More than likely, the output of the OCR program requires modifications. For instance, page numbers or headers and footers need to be removed. Our House Treasures uses MSWord as our base repository/editor to perform basic editing tasks. Word is an extremely popular format, including being used as an input for publishing conversion programs, such as Kindle Create. Also, the vast variety of export format options available in Word is very advantageous. As a document editor, Word’s reflowable output closely resembles the desired publication layout.
Step 5: Proofread the book
The OCR programs of today are very sophisticated, even compared to those of a few years ago. However, many books are incredibly old and font recognition is a challenge. Fonts can be picked up incorrectly or not recognized at all if pages are yellow, wavy, or blurry. One of the books originally chosen by us used numerous language fonts, including Greek and Latin. Many corrections had to be made during the proofreading process. Also, books printed in “olde” style English (those in the 1800s) have unique punctuation styles. These are things we had not considered when we chose the books. The greatest warning regarding proofreading: this step often takes the greatest amount of time! However, meticulous proofreading makes all the difference to publish an accurate, top-grade reflowable ebook. (Yes! Readers are quick to notice proofing errors!!!)
Step 6: Publish the book
Once a reflowable, proofread book is “in hand”, it’s time to get it out to the world. Our House Treasures currently publishes on Amazon for the Kindle platform and in EPUB (standardize/consistent .epub vs. ePub) format for our own website. More details coming soon.