Scrivener For Dummies

Formatting Your E-Book

The compile options in the following sections are specific to the ePub and Kindle output types.

Adding a cover

Despite advice to the contrary, books are always judged by their covers. Luckily, Scrivener makes it easy to insert cover art for your e-book. The design is up to you.

The cover image is displayed at the beginning of the book, before the table of contents or any other front matter, and as a thumbnail on the virtual bookshelf on most e-readers.

The image you plan to use must be imported into the Scrivener project before you can add it as a cover (see Chapter 2 for more on importing).

Keep in mind a couple of things when choosing or creating cover images:

Image Type: The image should be an RGB-based raster format (for example, PNG, TIFF, or JPEG), not a vector format (such as EPS). Also, don’t use the CMYK color model, which is better for high-quality printing.

Image Size: 800 pixels tall by 600 pixels wide at 72 DPI is ideal for a clean display without unnecessarily inflating the e-book size. Large files can cause memory problems for e-reader devices and make the file difficult to send via e-mail.

To add a cover to your e-book, click the Cover tab and ...