How to FORMAT A BOOK in Word • Video 1: Format the Body Text

[@nom5205]

Heather has formatted two books for me...and I must say that I have been very happy with both. Each time I pick those books up, I am always impressed with how the formatting has exceeded my expectation. I will be watching to see if I want to tackle this important and time consuming step of formatting.

[@hapruitt.anelthalien]

Thank you for sharing your experience! I hope these videos can help you. 😊

[@authorjoannawhite]

I cannot wait for this series. I had no idea you used Microsoft Word because your books look sooooo professional it looks like some fancy program! I wish I had this series (especially the bit about pictures) before I bought atticus 😂

[@hapruitt.anelthalien]

Thank you! That means a lot to hear that my formatting looks so good. It has taken quite a few books to figure it out, but I'm glad I have.

[@authorjoannawhite]

@@hapruitt.anelthalien honestly it looks absolutely amazing! I constantly admired it as I read anelthelian lol

[@hapruitt.anelthalien]

Any questions about formatting the body text?

[@pradeepielts]

You are great! 😍

[@hapruitt.anelthalien]

@@pradeepielts Thank you!

[@pauladominique]

My book is already an e-book and I'm converting it to paperback, so I can't highlight all the text, since my chapters, etc are already there. Do I have to highlight one chapter at a time, omitting the titles, etc and then set margins each time? Maybe that's why the margins I've been setting are not working, and Microsoft keeps warning me that they're not fitting the printable part of the page.

[@hapruitt.anelthalien]

I've never done that, but that probably is the problem since the e-book has different formatting. When you set margins in the pop-up box, it gives the options to apply the margins to that section or the whole document. If clicking the "whole document" button doesn't work, then you may need to set each section individually.

[@jettdad4507]

Why not use the style sheet for formatting? Then if you want to change something later it is much, much easier.

[@hapruitt.anelthalien]

Yes, using a style sheet for formatting makes it easier. Whether or not you use a style sheet, though, it can be hard to change something if you go back and do it later.

[@richardlucas8849]

Hi, I am just about to use your set of videos to format a book | am in the process of writing. I have a question before I start. Firstly I am quite a way in on my book, it is non-fiction and has quite a lot of pictures and maps, mostly colour ( sorry I am UK so its Kings English for me ) and I have already put them in the relevant places. So should I take them out before I format or can I leave them in? Regards Richard

[@hapruitt.anelthalien]

@richardlucas8849 If you leave the pictures in, then when you do the formatting, it is likely they will move to where you don't want them. Word is very tricky when it comes to pictures, and making the slightest change can move a picture to a whole other page, somewhere halfway off the page, or some other crazy place. If I was in your place, I would take all the pictures out and type a brief description of the picture where you want it as a placeholder then put the pictures back in after applying the formatting. It will be quite a bit of work, but it will save you even more work and frustration.

[@richardlucas8849]

@@hapruitt.anelthalien Thank you so much for getting back so promptly, I had a feeling that would be the answer and I will do just that, I have two screens so I could run it on the second screen and copy them over to the formatted version that might do the trick. Actually there is a second question. Once you have formatted is it easy to edit or even add a page or so?? Many Thanks Richard Celer et Audax

[@hapruitt.anelthalien]

@richardlucas8849 Except for the pictures, if you make changes after formatting, it shouldn't result in problems. I do most of my formatting before my final rounds of editing (proofreading), and that works just fine. If you still have more text to add, it is okay to set margins and the page size and to format the text and titles like you want.

[@richardlucas8849]

@@hapruitt.anelthalien Thankyou, you have been very helpful and your videos are so so useful. As you can probably tell I am new to this and it is fun for sure I am printing and binding the book as well so it's into uncharted waters !! Thanks

[@KJ-zr2ko]

What font were you using? Great video. Thanks

[@hapruitt.anelthalien]

Thanks! I used 12 point Times New Roman font.

[@steve_aventura]

Why aren’t you using styles and modifying them to be what you want. There is a style “Normal” for body text. Also in the style setting, you can define the indent for the first line of a oaragraph

[@BruceWayne15325]

KDP has free templates you can use for many different sizes of books, and you can change the page layout if you need a size they don't support. It's much easier than trying to do it from scratch. I hate their table of contents, but that's okay, I just delete it and use the TOC that's built into Microsoft Word in their Reference section. I think it looks nicer anyway.

[@hapruitt.anelthalien]

I have tried using KDP's templates in the past, but I kept finding so many inconsistencies (like the page size changing halfway through the book) that I had to learn how to fix them, and it became easier to start from scratch rather than start with a template I had to fix. But I know authors use other sites with good templates

[@BruceWayne15325]

@@hapruitt.anelthalien yeah the templates can be a pain for sure. I struggled with it for about a day. It ended up being more of an issue with me not fully understanding the intricacies of Word than anything to do with the templates themselves. Word is very flakey and difficult to use when it comes to formatting. To avoid things like page size changing on you, be sure to copy / paste your text into something like notepad that doesn't preserve any formatting. Then copy / paste it into the template. You still have a be a bit careful due to the page breaks, and make sure they exist in the right spot. Sometimes you need to turn on the hidden text to fully see what's going on. The TOC that the templates use are terrible, I recommend using Word's built-in TOC, but again that's kind of flakey and difficult to use when the TOC spans multiple pages.