kindle format

[Timbow]

I am taking on some work which involves preparing text and images for publication on the kindle. I have been looking at the specifications for kindle files and it is a kind of html but to kindle's own standards, so html but not as we know it. Does anyone have experience of this work which they would share with me? To speed my learning I could do with an up to date set of sample files showing how it should be done.

I am getting the material as both .doc and .pdf . I could export the doc to html but I don't know if that will be good enough. I don't know if it even matters if the markup is untidy since it is only for display on one standard device. I don't know how well formatted the .doc will be in the first place. 

I can extract a .txt file from the pdf (or the doc) which would give me a clean start but a large document to format. What tools are best for that kind of simple but bulk formatting? Some kind of editor? or just notepad++ (and patience). I might for instance have to go through the text inserting </p><p> several hundred times.