Formatting a Children's Book

This was actually quite an adventure.

Since I wanted to have full color, full page pictures with the text inserted in the blank space available on each page, I had to figure out a way to (a) get everything to fit and (b) get everything into a format that Kindle could read. It was a lot of trial and error.

I used Open Office Draw and inserted scanned images of the construction paper drawings and cutouts I had made for the illustrations. Once the images were inserted and sized, I placed a 'text box' in the open space where I wanted to write that page's lines.

Once I had finished the book, I needed to figure out how to transform it into one of Kindle's accepted formats.

First, I tried exporting the Draw file into HTML format within a compressed folder, so I wouldn't lose the images. I could not get this to upload correctly and I could not get Open Office to export the Draw file into MS Word's format.

I solved this problem by exporting the Draw file into a series of JPEG photos. I then inserted these photos in order within MS Word and uploaded the .docx file to Kindle. It worked perfectly.

Now, the next book will be uploaded much faster than this one was. I probably spent four hours trying to figure out how to get everything looking right and uploaded correctly.

The first time is always the most difficult, though, isn't it?