Started your book elsewhere? You can upload a Word document. Tablo will automatically transform your writing into a book on Tablo.
Before you get started, here are a few fixes to make to your document first. These will save you time later, or improve how your book will look after importing.
Finding and replacing in Word
These fixes make use of Microsoft Word's powerful find-and-replace feature. With this tool you can search for specific instances of almost anything in your writing, and replace them, change their formatting or delete them.
A note of caution: Making changes across your whole document can be risky. After each change, check the result. To go back to before the change, use Undo.
Improve the look of your writing
Word automatically replaces straight quotes with curly quotes by default. A catch is that it only works as you type. But you can use find-replace to trick Word into believing you'd just typed them all. After these steps, all marks will be curly.
Replace straight quotes with curly quotes
Click Edit > Find > Advanced Find and Replace
The Find and Replace dialogue box appears. From the options at the top, select Replace.
Click In the Find what: box, type '.
In the Replace with: box, '.
Click Replace All, then OK.
In the Find what: box, delete ' and type ".
In the Replace with: box, delete ' and type ".
Click Replace All, then OK.
Remove empty space
Empty space in your writing can create gaps between words, or add empty pages when we begin to typeset your book. Here's how to remove all unnecessary space.
A note on wildcards: You'll see ^p below. This known as a wildcard. A wildcard is a special combination of a symbol and a letter that Word will read as something else. For example, Word reads ^p to mean a time when you've hit enter/return.
Replace multiple spaces with single spaces
Click Edit > Find > Advanced Find and Replace
The Find and Replace dialogue box appears. From the options at the top, select Replace.
Click inside the Find what: box. Press space twice.
Click inside the Replace with: box. Press space once.
Click Replace All, then OK. Repeat until the number of replacements is zero.
Remove a space before a new line
Click Edit > Find > Advanced Find and Replace
The Find and Replace dialogue box appears. From the options at the top, select Replace.
Click inside the Find what: box. Press space then type ^p.
Click inside the Replace with: box. Type ^p.
Click Replace All, then OK. Repeat until the number of replacements is zero.
Remove a space after a new line
Click Edit > Find > Advanced Find and Replace
The Find and Replace dialogue box appears. From the options at the top, select Replace.
Click inside the Find what: box. Type ^p then press space.
Click inside the Replace with: box. Type ^p.
Click Replace All, then OK. Repeat until the number of replacements is zero.
Replace multiple lines with single lines
Click Edit > Find > Advanced Find and Replace
The Find and Replace dialogue box appears. From the options at the top, select Replace.
Click inside the Find what: box. Type ^p^p.
Click inside the Replace with: box. Type ^p.
Click Replace All, then OK. Repeat until the number of replacements is zero.
Remove manual formatting
Tablo automatically indents your writing for you. If you have manually added tabs, these can be brought over in the import. It's best to remove them now.
Remove tabs
Click Edit > Find > Advanced Find and Replace
The Find and Replace dialogue box appears. From the options at the top, select Replace.
Click inside the Find what: box. Type ^t.
Click Replace All, then OK.