Review of eBook Pro

A limitation of this review is that the only word processor I use is MS Word, so I was only able to test eBook Pro's compatibility with MS Word, not with any other word processor.

When you open up eBook Pro and start a new book, one of the first things you’re prompted to do is choose the sort of page layout you want. You can choose from among 25 templates or just compose on a blank page. Some templates have space to the right of the text section where you can put a picture of yourself as the author and put a little bio of yourself, or put any picture or graphic from your hard drive. Others have some pictures already embedded which you can delete and replace if you want.

To give you some guidance on how and where to put your headings, each template chapter page has at the top the words "chapter title" which you can replace with your actual title and then below has generic section titles which you can replace with your own section titles. Of course, if you have your own preferences about how to do your headings you can just delete all of the generic titles and headings in the templates and just do it your own way. Basically, you’re in control. The templates have generic section headings in which to put your own headings, or you can just delete the generic headings and do things your own way.

The toolbar looks pretty much like that of a typical word processor like MS Word, with the basic formatting toolbars such as boldface, italic, underline, the various options for aligning text, choosing font size and style, etc. You can insert pictures as objects just as in standard word processors. It’s quite straightforward.

The only drawback is that there is no double-spacing toolbar, so if you want double-spaced text without having to hit "enter" after every line, you need to compose your text first in a word processor that has that function and then copy and paste it into eBook Pro. The good news is that formatting copies very well from MS Word into eBook Pro. When I copy and paste double-spaced text from Word into eBook Pro, and the double-spacing passes over without glitches.

In fact, I found that the formatting features not specifically found in eBook Pro still copy over to it quite well from MS Word. So if you like you can compose your text first in an application other than eBook Pro if you prefer the formatting in that one, and then copy and paste into eBook Pro.

Some of the other MS Word features that copy over successfully to eBook Pro include ruby texting, tables, and foreign language characters (I even copied over Chinese characters to test this).

When you want to start a new chapter, you just find the option under the file menu. For each chapter you create there is a tab at the top of the worksheet that you can click on whenever you want to back/forward to that part of your book, so it’s easy to navigate between different parts of your book when you think of making changes to material you’ve already composed.

Inserting links is relatively simple and there are two toolbars for this: one for Internet links and one for links to other parts of your book. The standard practice is to place, at the end of each chapter, both a link to the next chapter as well as a link back to the index page. This makes your book easily navigable for your readers.

For each chapter of your book, eBook Pro automatically creates an individual HTML file in a directory it setups specifically for that book. And any changes you make to the book are automatically made in the HTML files.

But be careful: Never have files in that directory that are not specifically related to your e-book. When eBook Pro creates a directory for your book, never put any files in it other than the HTML files eBook Pro creates there for you, and never move the HTML files to a directory that isn’t empty. When I tried compiling an e-book while it’s HTML files were in a non-empty directory, there were some glitches with the e-book. It was only when I recompiled the book with the HTML files in their own directory that the book functioned properly without glitches.

Basically, composing your book in eBook Pro is quite straightforward. When that's done, it's time to package your book into a final product, which we'll cover next.

When you indicate you want to compile your book, the first thing eBook Pro asks is if you want to include the e-book viewer with the book. Readers need this viewer to open the book. If you choose to include the viewer, eBook Pro attaches the viewer to your book so that they are one and the same file, so all a person has to do is click on your book and it will open.

You must choose to include the viewer if you want to option of having splash image to show momentarily while the book is being opened. If you choose to attach the viewer, then the next dialogue box that appears asking you if you want a splash image and, if you do, to choose one either from eBook Pro’s ready-made images or any image from your hard drive. In the next dialogue box that appears you can choose to include an "About" image.

Next you are asked to select the encryption level (the choices are 40 bit or 128 bit encryption).

In the next dialogue box you’re asked to enter your author contact info, such as your name, phone number, e-mail, etc. The only thing I don’t like here is that your e-mail address is required by the software, or else it won’t continue with compiling the book. Now, of course, you should provide an e-mail address where your readers can contact you, but ultimately I don’t like it when a software actually requires this of you and doesn’t let you make the decision. This is just a minor thing, of course. I just happen to be a control freak personally, and so I like to be calling all the shots.

Anyway, next you specify what personal information you want to require of your reader about herself when it’s time for her to register her copy. If your reader doesn’t fill out all the info you require, her copy of the book doesn’t get registered and she can’t access your book. You decide if you want your reader’s first and last names, postal address, e-mail address, phone number, etc.

In the next dialogue box is a feature that I really like: a privacy policy statement which guarantees your reader’s personal info won’t be shared with anyone, and which prompts the readers to authorize you to send them info about your product or service. eBook Pro has a default statement already made for you which you can go with, or you can edit the default statement however you like. When your readers register their copies of your book, a dialogue box appears showing them this statement and prompting them to indicate their understanding and acceptance of it.

Next is the option to include an "e-mail a friend" button, so that a reader can simply click on it and enter the e-mail address of a friend or someone who she thinks will be also be interested in your book, and a copy of it gets automatically e-mailed to that person. This is a pretty nice viral marketing tool.

At the end you’re asked to choose which chapters of your book you’ll allow to be printed by your reader. You can choose to forbid printing of any part. This also the dialog window in which you decide whether someone can take a screen capture of an entire section of your book, and also the place where you decide how much of your book you want to be free to your readers and how much of it you don’t want to be free.

If you want, say, to offer the first three chapters as a free trial, then you put a checkmark by each of those chapters and eBook Pro will allow readers access to them without having to register their copies. Then when readers try to access a paid chapter, a dialogue box appears prompting them to register their copies. Also, the privacy statement/agreement to receive info communication, which we discussed above, appears at this stage.

On the whole, I have found eBook Pro reasonably easy to use. I didn’t look at the instruction manual and still I was able to get the hang of things. It’s quite straightforward to use and I would recommend it both for its diversity of features and for its high security level.

Mark Kurban