Book formatting in microsoft word

Formatting a Book in Microsoft Word

Font

Setting Paragraphs and Spacing

Next, under the Indentation heading, there’s a Special column on the right. Set that to First Line and place the indentation at 0.2”.

Then you’ll want to make sure that Line Spacing is set to Single.

Chapter Headings

Click the Heading 1 style. You’ll see the heading change. Once it has changed, you can select whatever font style you want without removing the Heading 1 style from the chapter heading.

Table of Contents

That’s it! I can’t say that it’s easy exactly, but it’s not the hardest thing in the world. Next, you can upload the .docx MS Word document to Kindle Direct Publishing and Amazon will convert it to an EPUB file for you.

Double-Check Your Work!

Next Steps: Formatting for Print in Microsoft Word

Book Size and Page Setup

Margins

Next, navigate to the Margins tab on the left-hand side of the Layout toolbar. Click on it and select Custom Margins at the very bottom of the dropdown menu. Depending on your book’s word count, you may have a little room to make them smaller. The important thing is to not make them too small because doing so can cut off some of the text when the book is bound.

You generally don’t want to go smaller than 0.325”. For this book, we’ll set all the margins to 0.75”. When you preview your book before you send it to be printed, you’ll be able to ensure that none of the text is cut off by the binding.

Copy and Paste Your Book

Now is a good time to copy and paste your manuscript into the formatted document. This way you can have a different document for print books and one for ebooks. Plus, the next section is easier when you can see what you’re doing and where your different sections start.

Once your manuscript is pasted into the formatted Word file, head over to the Insert toolbar. Then navigate to the Header tab. Once you click it, a dropdown menu will appear and you’ll be able to choose the header style you like best for your book.

If you’re not sure, take a look at a couple of your books to see what style you like best. Usually, the header is used for the author’s name and the title of the book. Most of the time the text of the header is smaller, but not always. It’s always differentiated in some way from the main text.

Next, you’ll see that the top toolbar has switched automatically to the Header and Footer tab. The Link to Previous button should be highlighted. Deselect this.

Then, navigate to the left and find the Page Number button. Click it to access the dropdown menu. Select whichever style of page number you like. The numbers should only start at the bottom of the page you’re on.

Once you’re done adding the page numbers, you’ll have a print-formatted manuscript!

Triple Check Your Work!

Video: How to Format a Book in Word

For a nice summary of this article, along with a few of my own personal thoughts on the subject, be sure to check out this video on how to format a book in Microsoft Word.

Want more videos like this? Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel for weekly videos!

Formatting With Atticus

You can also customize the paragraph styles, making them indented or spaced. You can also add custom paragraph breaks or choose from existing ones. There’s an option for lead-in small caps and, of course, the always classy drop cap option. And, you can preview the changes in real-time.

Atticus also makes it easy to change your headers and footers without all the trouble that doing it in MS Word entails. You can choose what page number format you want, as well as what header format.

And, perhaps best of all, it also allows you to pick your print options easily. Atticus will then automatically format it, giving you an excellent-looking file that you can use with any print-on-demand companies. You can use it as a word processor or just for book formatting. Or both!

So if you want to save time (and time is money, especially for indie authors, isn’t it?), then head on over to Atticus.io and get yourself a copy for a one-time price. No monthly fees here. And you’ll always get the latest updates as we continually upgrade and make Atticus even better.

We will start with a blank document and set our page size and margins. Word can offer you various templates to use but you ideally want to start with a blank document and format your book to your own specification.

Microsoft Word – Pages Size

After we have chosen our blank document it is time to choose the page size. There are plenty of sizes to choose from and it is something that will need a lot of thinking. Today we will format a B-Format book at 198mm high x 129mm wide. This is a standard size for a novel. If you are struggling to find a page size that you think is suitable for your book, then head over to our other post for more information – Hardback and Paperback Book Sizes.

To change the page size, we go to Layout > Size > More Paper Sizes…

This will bring up another window where we can input our own custom size.

Under paper size, you want to click the drop-down box and select custom size and then fill out the width and height of the finished paper size you want. In our case, we want a book 198mm high x 129mm wide. As my word document measurements are in cm’s we will fill this out accordingly. You will need to check if your document is in mm’s, cm’s, inches etc. The paper source we will leave as default for now.

After we have filled out the height of 19.8 cm’s and the width of 12.9 cm’s and selected to apply to the whole document, it is time to move on to the next part, the margins.

Microsoft Word – Page Margin

As standard Word will set the margins to 1″ / 2.54cm. The margin size you will want will depend on a few different factors;

• The final page length of your book
• Finished size of your book
• Fiction or non-fiction
• Your book’s genre

There are a few other factors to consider but the best advice we have given our customers is to have a look at other books which are like yours and simply measure the margins. You will find that many books will be different, you just need to choose the right size for your book.

We are going to choose margin sizes of 18mm for the left and right and 15mm for the top and bottom. When we set this up in Microsoft Word it will be 1.8cm left and right and 1.5cm top and bottom.

Microsoft Word – Gutter Size

We then have the option of setting the gutter and the gutter position. This is a term used in the printing industry which describes the side on which a book will be bound. For a normal book printed and bound in the UK, Europe, USA and many other countries, this will be on the left-hand side. The gutter measurement allows us to set extra space on the bound side. This means you have equal margin space on the left and right sides of your document, plus extra space for when all the pages get bound together so you don’t have to ‘break’ the spine of the book.

The gutter measurement will depend on how many pages your book will be. For a small number of pages in the range of 20 to 50, a gutter size of 5mm may be sufficient. However, if you have a large number of pages, 300+ you may want to increase the gutter size to 10mm. Again, this is something that if you are unfamiliar with, you will want to have a look at some books in the same genre and decide.

For our book, we are going to use a gutter size of 5mm and set it to the left-hand side, the orientation set to portrait and the multiple pages option set to mirror margins.

We now have a document that is starting to look like a traditional book but we are far from finished. You should have something which looks like the image below.

Formatting a book in Microsoft Word is very similar to Adobe InDesign and other typesetting software. We are now going to work on the paragraph styles. You can bring up the paragraph options under the layout tab and click the little arrow underneath. For our novel, we are going to use a basic style which is common in most fiction novels.

The alignment will be set to justify and the outline level will be body text. The indentation will be set to 0cm but under special we will set the first-line indentation. For our book, we are going to have a 5mm first-line indent. Again, have a look at other books and make a decision based on what you feel would look right for your book. The spacing of the paragraphs will be set to 0pt before and after and the line spacing set to single.

You will now have a book that looks like the one below. You will notice that in this paragraph style we have set indents for every first line of every paragraph. Now with our book, we don’t want to have the first line of the first paragraph indented. We will have to manually adjust this setting by clicking on the first line of the first paragraph and adjusting the margins using the step above.

Microsoft Word – Chapter Titles

The next step will be to start amending our chapter titles. The chapter titles should be in a larger font than the rest of the text with some additional spacing between the top of the page and the main body of the text. For our book, we are going to use the same font as the main body but in 16pt. The spacing is a personal preference, use what you think is best for your book.

This is how the first page of the main body of our book looks. We are starting to get a nice clean layout that resembles a standard novel.

Now we will start to look into the fonts for our book. This part could be a whole post all to itself as there are many different variables. For more of an understanding of fonts you could check out some of the following posts; How to Choose the Right Font for Your Book, How to Choose the Right Font for your Design and What Font Should You Use for Your Book.

To change the font of your book you will need to click on the home tab at the top of the document. You will then be able to see all the standard options to edit your book. Select what font you will like from the drop-down and the font size. Remember if you have already set your chapter size if you change the font size with all the text selected it will apply that font size setting to everything.

Our book is going to be set in Garamond at 12pt. This is a popular font type used in novels. Some other popular fonts are Palatino and Minion Pro but there are thousands of fonts to choose from so make sure you have a good look around before you decide.

We are now going to add page numbers to our book. To do this you want to go to, Insert > Page Number > Bottom of Page and then select a style that has the page number in the middle of the page.

You will then have page numbers added to every page of your document. The page numbers will need spacing in the footer. Our book is going to have a spacing of 1.25cm Header from Top and 0.3cm Footer from the Bottom.

This is how our book now looks.

We have a completed book that has been formatted in Microsoft Word which when exported as a PDF will be press-ready. There are a few little extras that can make your book look more professional but unfortunately, Microsoft Word doesn’t provide those options. Formatting a book in Word is not able to replace professional typesetting software such as InDesign but it can do a very good job of providing you with a press-ready PDF file that looks fantastic and will be suitable for 90% of books.

If you need helping to format your book to print we recommend the services of Book Design UK.

Many new writers will reach this common barrier when it comes to publishing their first book. That barrier is formatting.

Once you have written your wonderful book, had it edited and proofread, you may be wondering, right… how do I turn this into an actual book?

Before the final stage of submitting to your chosen self-publishing platform, you will need to format your book. This can be done on various book formatting programs or you could hire a freelancer to do it for you. 

But if you want to learn how to do this yourself, and do so inexpensively, then you may want to consider formatting your book in Microsoft Word. Which, I suppose you already have — hence, you reading this post!

Chances are you already have Microsoft Word installed on your PC, making it an easily accessible and free option for your book formatting needs. It is also quite a straight forward solution — especially if you have written a Novel or largely text-based book. 

Illustrated books, however, are a little different — but you can learn about that here if you wish.

In addition to the pre-created book and booklet formats, Microsoft Word provides parametrized layouts that can be used to create a beautiful book, whether you’ve written a memoir or sharing your romance novel for the world to read.

Creating Your Book In Word

First, start by opening Word. It’s recommended that you adjust the following settings before writing your content so that you won’t run into issues with formatting later.

Margins

Once you’re in Word, head over to the “Layout” tab and look for the “Margins” icon

From the “Margins” section, you’re able to adjust the parameters for the margins of your book page. These values should reflect your chosen book size and page amount. You may use a book margin calculator or use your book submission platform for reference.

Gutter

By default, the “Gutter” margin is set to 0. This is likely to cause problems down the line, as the gutter margin is the total space between the content of your book and the fold where the pages of the book will be bound together. 

You should either set this to a 1” margin, or whatever you have been advised to set it to based on your chosen book size (the platform you are submitting your book on will provide guidance on this). This will ensure the content of your book doesn’t get cut off by the fold.

Now, select the “Multiple Pages” drop-down, and then select “Mirror Margins”. Then, click “OK.”

This is just a basic set-up guide to show you how to adjust margins and format your book for print or ebook distribution. However, there are a tonne of things you can do through word, such as add page numbers on each page or alternate pages. Add a table of contents for easier navigation etc. So be sure to explore all of your options and play around with the in-built book formatting features in Microsoft Word.

Other Things To Consider When Formatting Your Book In Microsoft Word

• Microsoft Word documents may be difficult to export when they contain complicated formatting (e.g. tables, text sidebars, and insets).
• Do not adjust the margin lengths in your ebook as many platforms convert it to content that is re-flowable and can be viewed with various font sizes.
• Try not to insert empty lines of text to produce blank pages.
• Rather than copying and pasting, add your images straight into your document.
• Insert page breaks when you can at the end of chapters.

Free Pre-Edited Downloadable Microsoft Word Formatted Documents

So, now that you know how to edit your margins yourself, it might be a good time to mention that there are also pre-adjusted documents that you can also download for free.

They are word documents and are already set up for specific book sizes;

You can download those for free, here.

Likewise, you can use Kindle’s free formatting tool, Kindle Create to compile very professional books with all the trimmings!

(for Createspace, Lightning Source, or IngramSpark)

This is a guide to formatting your book in Microsoft Word (2010). We’ll be making a 6″x9″ PDF for print; but you can easily change the document to another size. You can watch these three videos, or go through the guide down below. You can start your own document from scratch, or download our free package of formatting templates to get started quickly. 

Part 1: Setting Paragraph Styles

How to format a book for print in MS Word — Tutorial #1

Part 2: setting up headers, page numbers and footings

How to format a book for print in MS Word — Tutorial #2

Part 3: Front matter and back matter suggestions

How to format a book for print in MS Word — Tutorial #3

PS. Our FREE book formatting templates have this stuff built in. Click here to download them now.

A Quick Trick for Outlining your Book

Did you know you can drag and drop whole sections around in MS Word (just like you can in Scrivener)? It helps a ton with organization.

Make your book beautiful… without the headache

Psst… learning to format your own books can be a pain in the ass. It’s easier with our beautifully designed, 100% free templates. They’ve already helped over 20,000 authors publish successfully. Click here to download them all.

Keep scrolling for an in-depth tutorial. You should also check out our NEW book formatting tutorial series (updated in 2017 — don’t worry, it’s free too).

How to format a book in Microsoft Word (with pictures)

Getting started

Open a new document. Click “size”>> “More paper sizes” and set the document to 6”x9” (or your book size).

Then set the margins and gutter. Make sure to apply to the “whole document” instead of “this section.”

I set this one to 1″ margins on the top and bottom (a bit too much on the top). The «Gutter» is extra space on the inside. Recently (2014) I’ve noticed that Createspace book spines are much more glued-together, so the gutter may need to be a little bigger. Copy and paste your text into the document (or, if you’ve already been writing in Word, save the document as a new file (to be safe) and then start formatting.

Setting Paragraphs

Highlight some text and click on the «line options» tab. Set the indent for the first line of paragraphs to .2 or so (I started with .3, but that’s too much).

Make sure there’s no space before or after the paragraph, and justified text. Select the font you want to use. With that text still selected, right click, go to “Styles” and “Update Normal to Match Selection.” Now your whole document is using the “Normal style.”

Then select the first paragraph of your book, click line spacing options again, but set the first line indent at 0.0. This time, right click and “Save the selection as a new style.” Save it as “First Paragraph.”

Chapter Pages

Next, we’re going to separate all the chapters. This will be really important later when we start adding headers and footers. So put the cursor before any of the text, go to “Page Layout” >> “Breaks” and “Next Page.”

If you’ve done this right, the first page will say “First page Footer, Section 1” and the top of the next page will say “First Page Header, Section 2.”

Click into the headers area (by clicking the space at the top of the page) and make sure you’ve checked «Different First Page” and “Different Odd and Even Pages.”

Because this is the first page of the first chapter, you can begin styling the chapter pages. To make use of Word’s built in Table of Contents function, it’s best to start with Word’s preset “Heading One.”

Just type “Chapter One”, select it, pick “Heading 1” from the styles, then change the size and font, select the text and right-click, then under «styles» click “Update Heading One to match selection.” (I’ve changed the font to no-indent, black, and «Bebas Neue.») You may want to expand the text by bringing up the fonts menu (Ctrl+D on Windows) go to advanced, spacing and “expanded.”

You should also check to make sure there’s no indent on your chapter title, so that it’s really centered.

If you have a “Navigation” window open on the left side, this heading should show up right away.

Now you may want to style the first sentence. Select the first few words, and transform them to uppercase by going to the “Change Case” button on the Home menu.

Then, to add a Dropcap, put the cursor before the first letter of the first sentence, then go to the Insert panel and click the DropCap feature.

You can change the font of the drop cap to stand out even more, but getting the positioning right can be tricky. If you want the Dropcap to take two lines instead of three, choose “Drop Cap options” from the menu.

Now that our first page is ready, move down to the second page and click in the top area to select the header. Up on the menu, the “Link to Previous” is probably selected. You want to click on it to unlink it (just for the first pages, so they don’t link with the front matter. For the remaining pages, you’ll want link to previous selected). I’ll type in “Book Title”, get the style right and then save it as a new quick style (“headers”).

I’ll align right. If you have “gutter” set up, you can see that the “inside” of the page (on the left) has more spacing. You want to align your headers and footers to the outside, so make sure it’s on the side of the page with the smaller margins.

Then I’ll go into the footers area, click “Insert”, then page numbers>>current position>>plain number. This enters a page number field. Mine starts on page 3. If I want to change this, I could go to Insert>>page numbers>>Format page numbers and then choose “start at #…” instead of “continue from previous section.”

Then I can go down to the next page. Because I’ve selected “Different Odd & Even Pages” I can make this page a little different, by aligning left and typing “Author Name.”

Then, instead of inserting the page number again, I can just select and copy the page number field from the previous page, and paste it into the footer of this page – aligning it left like the header. To check my work, I’ll go to “View” and hit the “Two pages” so I can make sure that it looks OK.

There’s a little too much space between my headers and the content… but that’s because I set my top page margins to 1” (a bit much). I’ll leave it for now. The headings and page numbers look fine, so I’ll go back to View>> 100% and continue on. The whole first chapter should look pretty good now.

If I want to style section breaks I could… a simple way is to use the “First Paragraph” style again with all caps on the first few words, but no dropcaps.

When I get down to the bottom of the chapter, I’ll put the cursor below the text, select Page layout>>Breaks >> and hit “Next Page” again.

Because this is the first page of a new section, and we’ve selected “Different First Page” this page should be blank, with no headers and footers, so you can style it like the first Chapter Page. In Word, it’s hard to line up everything exactly.

The best way to get it 100% consistent is to select and copy from just above the first paragraph to the top of the page, including all the spaces and Chapter Header, and then pasting it the first page of the next chapter. That’s also a little faster than redoing everything manually. Then I can just change the text to “Chapter Two”.

The following pages in the book should have the same headers and footers, and the page numbers should be automatic. So all you need to do is skip through and adding «Next Page» breaks between every chapter, and styling the chapter pages. If your page numbers aren’t working for any reason, make sure the “Link to Previous” option is selected. If they still aren’t connecting, go to format page numbers and “continue from previous.”

You can also just select the page number field from the previous section and copy it into the one that’s broken. If you’ve been setting all your quick styles (first paragraph, normal, header, headings, page numbers) going through the chapters like this should be pretty fast.

If you get stuck with anything, it will probably be with the headings and footers and page numbers. When you finish styling your chapters, switch to Two-Pages view so you can check everything over. Right and left-align can be confusing, even if you are viewing it in Two-Pages mode, because Word may not show it as it actually prints.

Just keep in mind the extra wide margins are the inside gutter, so these are aligned on the outside, even though they look like they will be on the inside. If you’ve been using the “Heading 1” style, Word has automatically been adding in your chapters to the navigation, which you should see on the navigation panel on the left.

So let’s go back to the front and add the “front matter”, including the table of contents.

Still here? You’re working too hard.

A lot of this stuff is already done for you in my formatting templates. I made them to help indie authors save time and money, without making amateur book design and formatting mistakes. Seriously, you should download  the free package. I’ll also send you my email series on publishing books that sell — I’ve been told it’s life changing.

🔒100% secure download. No spam, ever.

Adding the Copyright Page, Title Page and TOC

Put the cursor before chapter one and add a new “Next Page” break.

You’ll need these pages: 1. Title Page 2. Copyright page 3. Table of Contents 4. Dedication.

Your title page will want to match the cover pretty closely – see if your designer will give you the fonts he used – you may need to space out the lettering quite a bit. If you ask, your designer can probably save you a transparent PNG of the cover text (just like on the cover, but without the art) that you can add into the title page.

Your copyright page will look something like this (you can use this if you want):

TITLE Copyright © 2013 by Author Name.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations em- bodied in critical articles or reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organiza- tions, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For information contact; address www.website.com

Book and Cover design by Designer

ISBN: 123456789

First Edition: Month 2013

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The «10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1» on the bottom refers to the editions, so if it goes until “1” it means first edition. If this was the fourth edition, you’d write: «10 9 8 7 6 5 4». These numbers should be close to the bottom of the page. It can be centered, left or right aligned, and with much smaller font size (9 or 10).

If you’re indie publishing, the copyright page isn’t a big deal – in fact you can stand out by using something more creative. I tend to use a simple message like “Feel free to share this – just don’t try to pass it off as your own! If you enjoy this book, I really hope you’ll do me the favor of leaving a review. You can connect with me @creativindie.” There’s something to be said for trying to look as professional as possible though, especially with the print book; but I also think it’s fine to «own up to» and even take pride in the fact that you self-published, as some skeptics may feel you’re «trying to hide it» otherwise. Make another “next page” break. Then go to the “references” tab and hit Table of Contents.

You should get an automatic Table of Contents. You may need to delete some areas, or change the fonts and styles (if you do, make sure to save it as a new style… it’s really annoying to keep restyling it if you forget to do this). Because this table is automatic, you can “Update Table” and “Update Page Numbers Only” if you do rewrites or add content later.

For the TOC, you probably need to make the text about 14pt, and add a little more spacing. If this is a novel, you don’t really need a table of contents, but that’s up to you. For the front pages, you’ll probably want to make sure there’s no indents anywhere, so everything is properly aligned.

Be a little careful on these front pages – if a header or footer gets added in, and a later page is set to “link to previous” – then when you delete it on the front pages it will erase the headers and footers throughout the book. Instead, go to the next page with headers and uncheck “link to previous” – then you can delete the headers on the front pages. Also, the copyright page is usually on the back of the title page (on the left hand side), while the dedication, Table of Contents and Chapter One usually starts on the right hand side – this means you’ll have to leave some blank pages in between.

You can zoom way out to see everything together. Sometimes I need to use a real book, or picture the pages on my hand and flip my palm back and forth, to get this right. Note – some books have all chapter pages on the right hand side – if you want to do that, just add an extra blank page by adding more “Next Page” breaks, and make sure they aren’t connected to any headers or footers so they stay blank.

That’s it – I’m going to attach the sample I made for this tutorial, you can download it by clicking these links: Template-sample(.docx) Template-sample (.doc) (They won’t look the same unless you have the same fonts… so the first thing you’ll want to do is change the

Chapter Heading font to something that matches your book. Hopefully you’ve already got a great book cover, but if not, take a look at my huge list of best fonts per genre here.) If you get stuck and are frustrated, I highly recommend finding someone on Fiverr.com. Pay them $10~25 to fix whatever problem you’re stuck on; it’s worth it.

Ps) It can save some time if you learn a few useful keyboard shortcuts for MS Word. There’s a full list here. The one I use the most is «Ctrl+z» which undoes your last action.

Was this useful?

If so, please share it! If you need a book cover, you should check out the sister site, www.diybookcovers.com — it has more free tools and templates to make your book look good. If you haven’t done so yet, you should sign up for my email list. Not only will you get a bunch of professional book design and formatting templates, I’ll also send a free email series on everything I’ve learned after helping launch hundreds of bestsellers (and making a full-time living from my own fiction and non-fiction books).

PS. I’m not just some guy on the internet… I’ve got a PhD in Literature, have spoken on book design at publishing conferences around the world, and was featured in CNN for renting castles to use as writing retreats. You can also check out my main book cover design site, or my blog Creativindie.com where I help authors and artists produce and sell their best work.

If you want to write a book, you’ll need book writing software that’s up to the task. Yes, you can invest in dedicated book writing programs. But you don’t have to: a great writing tool is likely already at your fingertips, if you know how to write a book using Microsoft Word.

There’s a lot of book writing software out there. Many of these programs claim to offer intuitive use, help with organization, and even say they’ll keep you from distraction. The options can be overwhelming.

There’s still one tried and true option if you’re not interested in all that (or can’t afford the fancier programs): Microsoft Word.

I write most of my books in Microsoft Word, not to mention short stories. Here’s the rundown of how to write a book using Microsoft Word, and why that might be your best choice.

The Benefits of Microsoft Word for Book Writing

You most likely already have it. And so does everybody else. Word is the standard, accepted across platforms, and is easy to access for non-writers (your beta readers). It’s been around forever, so most people know how to use it.

There are book formatting templates. A ton of them. They have them for short story format and for manuscript format. Personally, I don’t use those templates, but they’re a nice baseline for beginners, or even old hats that just want to hurry up and write without setting up their document first.

It’s simple and uncluttered. There are a ton of apps and programs out there that will allow you to keep your plot structure notes close at hand, to rearrange your chapters with the click of a button, and to keep detailed character profiles right in the program. That’s all a little too much for me. I prefer handwritten notes and nothing else blocking my screen while I’m typing and Word gives me that.

It is worth noting that if all that sounds appealing to you, you can do those things in Word as well, it just won’t be as fancy as other programs.

Hey writer: the first step to writing a book is coming up with a great idea. The second step is figuring out the structure of your book. If you have an idea but you need help with the structure, check out our new book The Write Structure. In it, we’ll teach you how to apply timeless story structure principles to write a great book. Get The Write Structure »

How to Navigate Your Book in Microsoft Word

When you have a 90,000-word manuscript, navigating becomes daunting. Luckily there are ways to do it in Word that make it easier if you know where to look.

Chapter Headings

Word doesn’t divide your book into chapters for you like some other programs. There will be no easy way to click and drag to rearrange chapters.

What I recommend is using headings. On Word’s Home page, there are already standard headings listed. Definitely mess with them and change their formatting to something simple.

No one needs giant blue words as their chapter headings. (You can set your simpler formatting as your default style as well, so you don’t have to change it every time.)

Make the title or number of each chapter a heading. Then you can easily bounce around to different chapters through the navigation pane (check the Navigation Pane box under the View menu).

Bookmarks

These basically work the same way as headings, but they’re for anywhere in your document. Have a specific scene you need to do more research on? You can bookmark it and jump back to it later.

Bookmark by going to the Insert menu and clicking Bookmark. Name your bookmark and voilà. You can delete them easily from the popup menu as well.

Find and Replace

CTRL+F brings up a simple search option to find words and phrases in your document. CTRL+H brings up the full gambit. From that dialogue box, you can search, replace certain words with others (i.e. Jennifer now becomes Julia all through the manuscript), and go to any page, section, heading, bookmark, etc. that you need to go to.

Microsoft Word is Great for Editing Your Book

Word has a ton of options for editing your story, including comments, tracking changes, and comparing documents. All of these are under the Review menu.

I use the comments feature to make notes to myself where I need to recheck facts or add description later. It’s easy to navigate through the comments with the search feature or the buttons under the Review menu. Don’t forget to remove them all before saving your document as a PDF or sending it off to an editor.

Tracking changes is awesome and a lot of editors (for short stories anyway) will use this feature to collaborate with you during the editing process. You can accept or reject changes or even revert back to the original.

Finally, make sure you have grammar and spellcheck on! Grammar check even allows you to check style issues (like how to use an ellipsis correctly) and passive voice. It’s invaluable.

Pro tip: To keep you on track while you’re writing, turn off some of the more fine-tuning features of grammar check. There’s nothing that will ruin your flow more than a bunch of underlining you feel like you need to take care of immediately. I recommend running the full check when you’re done (or at least done for the day).

Formatting Your Book in Microsoft Word

Make sure you’re familiar with standard manuscript format for novels and formatting short stories. Take a look at those links and follow their instructions. You don’t want to get rejected out of hand because you tried some weird formatting that’s hard to look at.

One of the biggest gripes I see from editors is writers using spaces to indent paragraphs. Don’t do this. It makes it super hard on them when they’re putting a book together. Instead, use the ruler in Word (under the View menu) or the paragraph settings (under the Home menu) to adjust your tabs. A half inch is standard.

Despite what most of us were taught in school, the standard is now one space after periods, not two. This is another sticking point with editors, so don’t do it. If you’re used to two, there’s a grammar check feature in Word you can turn on to highlight every time you use two spaces.

Finally, use the page break option to break for a new chapter, not enter or a million spaces. You can find the page break under the Insert menu.

Pro tip: When in doubt about your formatting, you can turn on the Show/Hide option under the Home menu (looks like a paragraph symbol) to see all your formatting symbols.

Now That You’ve Mastered Microsoft Word, Go Write Your Book

Don’t let choosing writing software stagnant your writing. Don’t overthink it. You don’t need to keep up with the Joneses with the latest writing technology that’s trotted out on tech forums and in writing chats.

The important thing about writing a book is actually writing it. No fancy book writing software is going to help you with that.

So get writing!

Ever used Word to write a book? Do you have any more tips for how to write a book using Word? Let me know in the comments!

Бумажные книги постепенно отходят на второй план и, если современный человек что-то и читает, то делает это, чаше всего, со смартфона или планшета. Дома для аналогичных целей можно использовать компьютер или ноутбук.

Существуют специальные форматы файлов и программы-читалки для удобного чтения электронных книг, но многие из них также распространяются в форматах DOC и DOCX. Оформление таких файлов зачастую оставляет желать лучшего, поэтому в данной статье мы расскажем, как сделать книгу в Ворде хорошо читабельной и пригодной для печати именно в книжном формате.

Создание электронной версии книги

1. Откройте текстовый документ Word, содержащий книгу.

Примечание: Если вы скачали файл DOC и DOCX из интернета, вероятнее всего, после открытия он будет работать в режиме ограниченной функциональности. Чтобы его отключить, воспользуйтесь нашей инструкцией, описанной в статье по ссылке ниже.

Урок: Как убрать режим ограниченной функциональности в Ворде

2. Пройдитесь по документу, вполне возможно, что в нем содержится много лишнего, информации и данных, которые вам не нужны, пустые страницы и т.д. Так, в нашем примере это газетная вырезка в начале книги и список того, к чему Стивен Кинг приложил свою руку к моменту написания новеллы “11/22/63”, которая и открыта в нашем файле.

3. Выделите весь текст, нажав “Ctrl+A”.

4. Откройте диалоговое окно “Параметры страницы” (вкладка “Макет” в Word 2012 — 2016, “Разметка страницы” в версиях 2007 — 2010 и “Формат” в 2003).

5. В разделе “Страницы” разверните меню пункта “Несколько страниц” и выберите “Брошюра”. Это автоматически изменит ориентацию на альбомную.

Уроки: Как сделать буклет в Ворде
Как сделать альбомный лист

6. Под пунктом “Несколько страниц” появится новый пункт “Число страниц в брошюре”. Выберите 4 (по две страницы с каждой стороны листа), в разделе “Образец” вы можете увидеть, как это будет выглядеть.

7. С выбором пункта “Брошюра” настройки полей (их название) изменились. Теперь в документе есть не левое и правое поле, а “Внутри” и “Снаружи”, что логично для книжного формата. В зависимости от того, как вы будете скреплять свою будущую книгу после печати, выберите подходящий размер полей, не забыв о размере переплета.

Совет: Если вы планируете склеивать листы книги, размера переплета в 2 см будет достаточно, если же вы хотите ее сшить или скрепить каким-нибудь другим образом, проделывая отверстия в листах, лучше сделать “Переплет” немного больше.

Примечание: Поле “Внутри” отвечает за отступ текста от переплета, “Снаружи” — от внешнего края листа.

Уроки: Как сделать отступ в Ворде
Как изменить поля страницы

8. Проверьте документ, нормально ли он выглядит. Если текст “разъехался”, возможно, виной этому являются колонтитулы, которые необходимо подкорректировать. Для этого в окне “Параметры страницы” перейдите во вкладку “Источник бумаги” и задайте необходимый размер колонтитулов.

9. Снова просмотрите текст. Возможно, вас не устраивает размер шрифта или сам шрифт. Если это необходимо, изменить его, воспользовавшись нашей инструкцией.

Урок: Как изменить шрифт в Word

10. Вероятнее всего, с изменением ориентации страницы, полей, шрифта и его размера, текст сместился по документу. Для кого-то это не имеет значения, но кто-то явно пожелает сделать так, чтобы каждая глава, а то и каждый раздел книги начинался с новой страницы. Для этого в тех местах, где заканчивается глава (раздел), нужно добавить разрыв страницы.

Урок: Как добавить разрыв страницы в Ворде

Проделав все вышеописанные манипуляции, вы придадите своей книге “правильный”, хорошо читабельный вид. Так что можно смело переходить к следующему этапу.

Примечание: Если в книге по каким-то причинам отсутствует нумерация страниц, вы можете сделать ее вручную, воспользовавшись инструкцией, описанной в нашей статье.

Урок: Как пронумеровать страницы в Word

Печать созданной книги

Завершив работу с электронной версией книги, ее необходимо распечатать, предварительно убедившись в работоспособности способности принтера и достаточных запасах бумаги и краски.

1. Откройте меню “Файл” (кнопка “MS Office” в ранних версиях программы).

2. Выберите пункт “Печать”.

Совет: Открыть параметры печати можно и с помощью клавиш — просто нажмите в текстовом документе “Ctrl+P”.

3. Выберите пункт “Печать на обоих сторонах” или “Двусторонняя печать”, в зависимости от версии программы. Поместите бумагу в лоток и нажмите “Печать”.

После того, как будет напечатана первая половина книги, Ворд выдаст следующее уведомление:

Примечание: Инструкция, которая отображается в данном окне, является стандартной. Следовательно, представленный в ней совет подойдет не для всех принтеров. Ваша задача — понять, как и на какой стороне листа печатает ваш принтер, как он выдает бумагу с распечатанным текстом, после чего ее нужно зеркально перевернуть и поместить в лоток. Нажмите кнопку “ОК”.

Совет: Если боитесь допустить ошибку непосредственно на этапе печати, для начала попробуйте распечатать четыре страницы книги, то есть, один лист с текстом с двух сторон.

После того, как печать будет завершена, вы можете скрепить, сшить или склеить свою книгу. Листы при этом нужно складывать не так, как в тетрадке, а сгибать каждый из них посередине (место для переплета), а затем складывать друг за другом, согласно нумерации страниц.

На этом мы закончим, из этой статьи вы узнали, как в MS Word сделать книжный формат страницы, самостоятельно сделать электронную версию книги, а затем распечатать ее на принтере, создав физическую копию. Читайте только хорошие книги, осваивайте правильные и полезные программы, коей является и текстовый редактор из пакета Microsoft Office.