Two months ago, I really struggled to put my book into e-book using Sigil. The software was not easy to understand, it took me many trials and errors to get it right. At one time I thought I had gotten the game right just to realise that the outcome of the book wasn’t what was expected. In actual fact I had given up and I was almost to pay somebody to undertake this project for me. Then one morning I woke up and I thought why can’t I do it myself, I am good in computers even though I am not a guru. I had made a booking for somebody to turn my book into ebook but cancelled that project and determined to get it done. I spent almost ten hours playing around with the software till I got it right.
Sigil does not accpet any file document, it accepts html coded documents making it harder to grasp it. I found the latest model of Sigil very complicated for me to use and therefore I went to the older version 0.7.4 I downloaded the software. Once on my computer, I went to my folder to find my word document book. I opened it and saved it as plaint text. Then I opened Sigil software and double clicked it, opened my plaint text document and Sigil recognises plain texts very easily. Once on Sigil I organised and played with the book until it became the e-book I wanted.
Sigil software has different features just like word document the only thing this software does not have is font. Therefore, you cannot put any font into your document on Sigil. However, one can organise their documents into a beautiful ebook or mobi book without to pay somebody to do it for them.
Sigil working sheet looks like this photo below. On the top bar you will find file, edit, insert, format, search, tools, view, Window plugins, help
On the bar below that there are many different tools to use such as open, add existing files, save, undo, redo, copy, paste file and replace, metadata and so forth.
On the third bar there is H1, H2, H3, H4 and so forth then P which stands for paragraph and A which stands for Bold. There are other characters on this bar used in different things.
Under this third bar the next is the open book icon which is highlighted indicating that you are working on your book or the space is ready for the book to be opened. Next to it is html icons which can be used to ensure that the book is having proper meta readings. (I’m not an expert of html).
On the left side of Sigil is the library of your book and you can import videos and images. The middle field is where editing takes place and on the right side you can see how your book will look like once finished (preview). Even though Sigil is not an easy software to understand, I fell in love with it and now I only look forward to editing my books and save that money which I could have used to pay someone else for the same job. What software do you use to make your ebook if any?
