creating an ebook, best way to go about it?

Question

Hey guys

So lets say I have a word document. It is a training manual. I wanna create an ebook out of this. But the thing is, it needs to have an interactive session. For example, the table of contents will have clickable links that follow to that specific part of the chapter.

So I am at a loss on how to approach this. Should I get my friend to modify the word document so that it is like "html"

[title linkto:keyword] Chapter 1 [/title]

And then have a table of keywords for easy look ups?

Also will a Rich Textbox be enough to handle this (links, formatting, etc etc)

Alternative approach: Scan through word document. Have each "page" in the word document as a seperate field entry in my db. Make sense?

Answer 1

Office 2007 (not sure about the 2003 one) allows you to insert headers within your document. There is an option that automatically builds the index table for you. If you then save the document as a PDF, the names of the chapters in the index page become hyperlinks. Once you click on the chapter name, you are immediately taken to the page where that chapter begins.

Answer 2

Do not reinvent the wheel.

PDFs already do everything you want and they are one of the most used formats for eBooks. They are widely supported - there are tools for converting from word documents, PDF authoring and of course readers.