Bookshelf | Reports | Community | KDP Select

Home » Amazon KDP Support » Ask the Community » Formatting

Thread: "Look Inside" formatting problem


This question is not answered. Helpful answers available: 2. Correct answers available: 1.

Reply to this Thread Reply to this Thread Search Forum Search Forum Back to Thread List Back to Thread List

Permlink Replies: 8 - Pages: 1 - Last Post: Nov 28, 2017 8:29 AM Last Post By: Notjohn
hsstours

Posts: 207
Registered: 09/27/11
"Look Inside" formatting problem
Posted: Nov 26, 2017 1:20 PM
 
Click to report abuse...   Click to reply to this thread Reply
Hi al!

I haven't seen a recent thread mention this problem, but on one of my books (B01AINPXMI), the Look Inside formatting is horribly incorrect. The TOC and first two chapters are center-aligned instead of left-justified, but from chapter 3 on it's fine. And there are some very screwy type size issues on the copyright page. I've remade the offending parts countless times, and tried both mobi and pub updates, to no avail. Same issue no matter the browser, either.

This problem does not occur on three others books built with the same format (B005P94EMQ, B0075ANKKU and B00CF8FL8G). They look fine.

This problem has persisted for some time and is driving me nuts! Anyone ever have this problem or have any advice for me?

Thanks!

Harry
cdalebrittain

Posts: 11,593
Registered: 03/05/11
Re: "Look Inside" formatting problem
Posted: Nov 26, 2017 3:43 PM   in response to: hsstours in response to: hsstours
 
Click to report abuse...   Click to reply to this thread Reply
What did you upload? HTML or a Word document? I'm assuming not something hand-formatted in HTML.

My guess is that the problem is back in your original source document, presumably in Word. Somehow the cen-tering for the title carried over into subsequent sections.

Are you using Styles? (you really should be in Word). If so, "apply" the Style that worked for chapter 3 on to chapters 1-2.

If you're not using Styles, and you've sort of manually set up the formatting all the way through, your best bet is the Nuclear Option.

Copy the entire book and paste it into something like Notepad. Now copy the Notepad text and paste it into a brand new, unformatted Word document.

Do Select-All. Go to Paragraph Format on the menu. Choose your line spacing, your indent for new paragraphs, and "justified."

You'll still have to go through and center your chapter heads (and probably reintroduce page breaks) and maybe put italics back in, but it should work. Good luck!

(Cen-tering seems to be a Forbidden Word if written out the way it should be, the kind of word that sends posts to moderation.)
cdalebrittain

Posts: 11,593
Registered: 03/05/11
Re: "Look Inside" formatting problem
Posted: Nov 26, 2017 3:46 PM   in response to: hsstours in response to: hsstours
 
Click to report abuse...   Click to reply to this thread Reply
PS
The above assumes the problem is with your file. Before trying this (I just re-read your post), see if the problem is with Editorial Reviews. Yes, I know, screwy but true. If they are centered, there may not have been a "close tag" before the Look Inside kicked in. So, if your book when you bought it looks fine on your kindle but the LI is messed up, then before you follow my Most Excellent Advice on fixing your file, try contacting KDP directly and asking them to look into fixing the Look Inside.
booknookbiz

Posts: 4,212
Registered: 03/04/10
Re: "Look Inside" formatting problem
Posted: Nov 26, 2017 4:02 PM   in response to: cdalebrittain in response to: cdalebrittain
 
Click to report abuse...   Click to reply to this thread Reply
cdalebrittain wrote:
PS
The above assumes the problem is with your file. Before trying this (I just re-read your post), see if the problem is with Editorial Reviews. Yes, I know, screwy but true. If they are centered, there may not have been a "close tag" before the Look Inside kicked in. So, if your book when you bought it looks fine on your kindle but the LI is messed up, then before you follow my Most Excellent Advice on fixing your file, try contacting KDP directly and asking them to look into fixing the Look Inside.

CDale:

I already checked--that's not it. The problem is most likely similar--an open c*entering tag, in the MOBI file or source file--probably surrounding the cover--but it's unrelated to the Description, Editorial Reviews (of which there are none), etc.

Good thought, though.

Hitch
We produce eBooks
An Amazon Professional Conversion Service : http://amzn.to/29pWZSg
www.Booknook.Biz
Notjohn

Posts: 23,805
Registered: 02/27/13
Re: "Look Inside" formatting problem
Posted: Nov 27, 2017 3:15 AM   in response to: hsstours in response to: hsstours
 
Click to report abuse...   Click to reply to this thread Reply
When you say "pub update," do you mean you uploaded an epub? How did you build the epub?

Apparently it's still true that Look Inside doesn't automagically close out a tag, the way the Kindle software does. A lot of us had to rebuild books when Look Inside came to live with us in 2010 or thereabouts. So as Hitch suggests, you may well have a <center> tag that isn't closed out by </center>.

That, plus the type-size changes you mention, make me suspect you built this document in Word, perhaps an older version. I got much the same effect with a book that had been uploaded from Word 2000.

(Don't trust KDP to publish a print edition. Don't trust CreateSpace to publish an ebook. Each does one thing well and the other thing poorly.)

Good luck! -- NJ

Notjohn's Guide to E-Book & Print Formatting

The blog:
http://notjohnkdp.blogspot.com
Salamander Mall...

Posts: 895
Registered: 10/16/17
Re: "Look Inside" formatting problem
Posted: Nov 27, 2017 8:16 AM   in response to: hsstours in response to: hsstours
 
Click to report abuse...   Click to reply to this thread Reply
The Look Inside reveals formatting errors commonly suppressed during conversion, in addition to eliminating things like page breaks to create a continuous scroll.
hsstours

Posts: 207
Registered: 09/27/11
Re: "Look Inside" formatting problem
Posted: Nov 27, 2017 8:31 AM   in response to: hsstours in response to: hsstours
 
Click to report abuse...   Click to reply to this thread Reply
Great comments.

So this was a Scrivener mobi file, formatted like all the other book in the series. I also tried submitting a Scrivener epub version but same problem, so that made me suspect the problem was at KPT's end.

But it looks like Hitch can explain away CDale's suggestion of the formatting in Editorial Reviews (which I also thought was a very good approach). So I went back and checked the cover page in the Scrivener file, which isn't a page, really, just a file that is later attached in the process of compiling the mobi (or epub) from the Scrivener file. The cover shows a dimmed "justified" setting in the binder, and you can't change that in Scrivener. But that would be ok anyhow, because justified alignment is what I'm going for.

I guess my next approach, to eliminate the possibility that the problem is in my file, would be to duplicate one of the files that work, then copy and paste each chapter from the one that doesn't, one at a time. Laborious, but it'd the last step before crying to tech support. ;)

If anyone hears of a similar problem (with a fix, I hope), or has any other ideas, I'll take all leads.

And thanks for all your help on this, gang. I really appreciate it.

Harry
William Thompson

Posts: 1,145
Registered: 07/06/14
Re: "Look Inside" formatting problem
Posted: Nov 27, 2017 4:06 PM   in response to: hsstours in response to: hsstours
 
Click to report abuse...   Click to reply to this thread Reply
I wouldn't just check your author reviews -- I would check your Book Description specifically in Author Central. It's also entirely possible that your Author Central book description has a missing center end tag. You can check/fix your book description by doing the following:

*Copy your current book description using Ctl-C.

*Paste it into Notepad. Doing this will remove all html formatting.

*Re-paste back into your author description in Author Central.

*Reformat the description using html very carefully -- ensuring that all html tags are properly closed with an end tag.

*Retest.

When you ebook is compiled to mobi, it's all compiled in one lump. That means that your book description, product image, Look Inside, ebook-for-sale etc are all compiled and converted together. So if you have a missing center end tag in your book description, this missing tag will be transmitted right through to your ebook. So doing the above could well fix your problem.

Why not try my free Sigil plugins now available on MobileRead?

OpenDocHTMLImport - converts ODT HTML(Writer) docs directly to epub.

GoogleZipImport - converts Google Doc HTML directly to epub format.

NormalizeScrivEpub - reformats, finishes-off and normalizes Scrivener epubs.

You can download all these free plugins from The Sigil Plugin Index on the MR Forum

Notjohn

Posts: 23,805
Registered: 02/27/13
Re: "Look Inside" formatting problem
Posted: Nov 28, 2017 3:21 AM   in response to: hsstours in response to: hsstours
 
Click to report abuse...   Click to reply to this thread Reply
Look at the html. Skip down to the line that ends "mark against you" and also "stare at my reflection." You should see a closing tag there, and also a new center tag at the line beginning "The light tile."

(Don't trust KDP to publish a print edition. Don't trust CreateSpace to publish an ebook. Each does one thing well and the other thing poorly.)

Good luck! -- NJ

Notjohn's Guide to E-Book & Print Formatting

The blog:
http://notjohnkdp.blogspot.com
Legend
Helpful Answer
Correct Answer

Point your RSS reader here for a feed of the latest messages in all forums
https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=1951121
kdp.amazon.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2018-05
57610
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:53GLUPCVMQ447FOIADRBPKQISVUUVSZS
<urn:uuid:8187244b-6c36-4eff-81c7-162019bc7461>
2018-01-23T21:47:29Z
72.21.202.92
text/html
sha1:T7VMW5HYPHKABLLEP4NZDM5O7N7D2YIY
<urn:uuid:fc7f2e64-e1f3-4eb0-876b-089cea7c255e>
https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=1951121
length
response
<urn:uuid:209546f4-32c6-4d88-a772-7d0ae938e75a>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-171-68-19.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2018-05
operator: Common Crawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for January 2018
publisher: Common Crawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf