Read the FAQ and the Sigil User's Guide for more information.

• A Basic Tutorial
• Convert text or html to epub format
• Set the Meta Data
• Add a Cover Image
• Create a Table of Contents (TOC)
• Important Note

A Basic Tutorial

This tutorial needs updating for 0.5.0, but is left here for reference.

1. Convert text or html to epub format — required
2. Set the Meta Data — optional, but strongly recommended
3. Add a Cover Image — optional, but recommended
4. Create a Table of Contents — optional, but recommended

Convert text or html to epub format

If your original book is a text or html file, just follow the steps outlined here.

If your original book is in a different format, such as Microsoft Word, check the conversion chart for which tool (or combination of tools) to use instead.

Start the Sigil editor and use the File -> Open command from the menu bar:

Move to the folder where your book file is, and open it:

Sigil should display the contents of your book:

Use the File -> Save As command from the menu bar:

and save the file as EPUB format:

If your original book was an html file, please make sure to confirm the resulting epub file before continuing with this tutorial.

Wow, is that it?

At a bare minimum, yes. But we recommend doing the following additional steps, to improve the experience for your readers.

Ha, I knew it couldn't be that easy...

Not to worry. If you made it this far, you can definitely do these next few things, since they're not hard.

Set the Meta Data

Meta Data is the set of attributes which defines the book's Title, Author, Language, and other important identifying information.

Setting the Meta Data is strongly recommended, but optional (if you skip this step, there is no guarantee how the title of your ebook file will appear).

To view and change the Meta Data, use the Tools -> Meta Editor command from the menu bar:

Sigil will display the current definitions in a new dialog window. You may see some values pre-filled in, based on the original filename of your text, etc.

Make any changes as necessary, and click the "Ok" button.

If you want to go beyond the basic three attributes, click the "More" button to see what other attributes can be defined:

To add a copyright notice, for example, click on "Rights", which will add that attribute to the Meta Data list. Click on the "Value" row to type your copyright statement.

Repeat as desired with other available attributes.

When you are finished with the Meta Data, save your changes with the File -> Save command from the menu bar.

Add a Cover Image

This is recommended, but optional. If you don't have a cover image you'd like to use, you can skip this section entirely.

Put the text cursor at the top of the file (i.e., just before "My Book Title" in this example), and use the Insert -> Image command from the menu bar:

Next, move to the folder where your cover image file is, and open it:

Some important notes about cover images:

• Image size should be 590 pixels wide x 750 pixels high
• Image resolution should be 72 pixels per inch (ppi) or higher
• Use color images, saved in RGB color space
• Image format can be JPEG, GIF, or PNG. The basic rules of thumb are:
• JPEG is best for photographs
• GIF and PNG formats are good for logos, charts, and graphs

How do I create a cover image?

You can use any image editing software capable of producing PNG, JPEG, or GIF format files. Popular choices include Adobe Photoshop and Gimp.

If your cursor was in the right place, Sigil should have put your cover image just ahead of the title, as in the picture below (if you got it wrong for some reason, just use the Edit -> Undo command from the menu bar and try it again).

Notice that the Images folder in the Book Browser (left sidebar) now contains the cover image:

Even though the cover image is at the very beginning of the file, you should explicitly mark it as the cover.

Select the cover image in the Book Browser sidebar, and right-click on the mouse. You should see an attributes menu. Scroll down to "Add Semantics" and click "Cover Image":

Finally, with the cursor in the same spot (i.e., after the image and just before the start of the text) use the Insert -> Chapter Break command from the menu bar:

You should see a new Section tab in the Text folder in the Book Browser: the first one contains the cover image:

and the second Section tab contains the start of the text:

It's also a good idea to add another break between the end of the copyright notice and the start of the book.

Position the cursor at the end of the copyright and use the Insert -> Chapter Break command from the menu bar again. You should see a third Section tab in the Text folder, and the title and copyright text have been isolated in the second Section tab:

All the text after the copyright notice is now in the third tab:

Remember to use the File -> Save command from the menu bar now, to preserve everything you've done.

Ok, that wasn't so bad. Now are we done?

One last thing.

Oh no!

It's not required, but your readers will appreciate having a Table of Contents.

Yeah, I suppose my book should have one. What do I do?

Just follow the steps in the next section.

Create a Table of Contents (TOC)

This is recommended, but optional. If your book is short, or doesn't lend itself to chapter breaks, you can skip this section entirely.

Move your cursor to the first item in your TOC, and highlight it. In our example book, "Introduction" is the first entry we want in the TOC:

With "Introduction" still highlighted, pick "Heading 1" from the <Select heading> toolbar option:

The text will have changed in size:

And it should also appear now as the first TOC entry.

Use the Tools -> TOC Editor command from the menu bar to confirm it:

The TOC Editor window appears, and you should see your first entry listed at the top:

Repeat this process for "Chapter 1" and anything else that belongs in the TOC.

Important Note

If you are used to Microsoft Word style automatic TOC generation, you might expect to see a list of chapter entries at the start of your text. Sigil will not insert a dedicated TOC page at the start of the book text because it is unnecessary as far as the epub format is concerned. Instead, if the TOC meta data, as viewed through the TOC Editor is correct, then your book's TOC is valid, and will be visible to reader devices.

When finished, use the Tools -> TOC Editor command from the menu bar to confirm everything is ok:

Suppose, though, that "Footnotes" is really just a sub-entry under "Epilogue", and you want it to appear that way in the TOC, too.

In that case, highlight the text with the cursor, and this time pick "Heading 2" from the <Select heading> toolbar option:

The size of "Footnotes" should become a bit smaller, and it should also be indented under "Epilogue" in the TOC hierarchy.

Use the Tools -> TOC Editor command from the menu bar to confirm it:

Remember to use the File -> Save command from the menu bar now, to preserve everything you've done.

Anything else?

Nope. We're done (see, it wasn't so bad).

If you have pictures, graphs, charts, or other illustrations you'd like to use in your book, just scroll to the appropriate places in the text and use the Insert -> Image command from the menu bar, as we did for the cover image (except do not use the "Add Semantics" attribute to mark them as cover images).

What about "Heading 3, 4, 5, and 6"?

Those let you set TOC hierachies, defining how things appear in your TOC.

For example, if "Footnotes" had two sub-parts, say "References" and "Illustrations", those could both be highlighted and changed to "Heading 3".

They would then appear in the TOC as being indented under "Footnotes", like this:

Things marked "Heading 4" would be indented under all the "Heading 3" items, and so on.

It seems like Sigil can do a lot more than what's shown here.

Yes, there are more features you can apply to your book; check the Sigil Wiki for specifics.

Posting Comments/Questions

Please use the Sigil Forum at MobileRead for all questions/comments. Comments on this wiki will be removed.