Making an ebook look like a real book

First, you need to decide what platform/device you want the ebook to be read on.

For complete control over appearance, use .pdf. It's readable on most of the current devices.

Check out Calibre and Stanza and feedreader.com

CutePDF works for me. I've converted several books and manuals to PDF using that program.

I use Calibre to convert anything that goes to kindle, and it works perfectly fine.

The problem with PDF is that it's designed for layout -- the document creator decides how it gets displayed. That's fine if everyone is going to be using the same kind of screen, but PDFs designed for a full-sized monitor usually look crappy on ereaders or iPhones.

epub is designed for devices -- the device decides how to display it, so the same document will display well on a full screen or small one.

epub is more complicated, though. You have to learn a little about the format, even with Calibre.