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Tips for Creating a Manuscript in Microsoft Word

Let’s make a book!

When you start preparing your book for publication, the first thing you’ll want to do is open the Word template that corresponds with your chosen book size. You can find this template in step 2 (files).

Basic information

When preparing your book for publication, there are a couple of ‘rules’ that we recommend you’ll follow:

  • The first page of your document should always be a page on the right side of your book.
  • Even page numbers are always on the left page, and odd page numbers are on the right page. Usually, page numbers are placed to the outer edge of the page.
  • The title page and colophon should not be numbered.
  • Turn off automatic hyphenation.
  • You can create a new paragraph using the ‘enter’ key, a new line in the same paragraph using ‘shift+enter’ and a new page using ‘ctrl+enter’.

Our Word templates are designed with these rules in mind.

Filling out title information and colophon

Usually, you start by filling out the title of the book and author name (either your own name or your pseudonym) on the designated places in our template.

Next, you fill out the colophon. For basic data such as the author’s name, cover designer’s name and ISBN, lines have already been included; for other information such as ‘editors’ you can create extra lines.

Automatic hyphenation

It is important that the option ‘automatic hyphenation’ is turned off. If this option is on, our system’s conversion will most likely not produce the wanted result. You can disable this option by:

  1. Going to ‘page layout’ then,
  2. Clicking on ‘hyphenation’ and
  3. Selecting ‘none’.

New pages

Often, you don’t want to fill an entire page, and instead continue working on the next page. To do this properly, you need to use the option ‘page-break’, this works as follows:

  1. At the top of the screen click on ‘insert’,
  2. Now click on ‘page-break’.

Tip: it’s also possible to use the key combination ‘ctrl+enter’.

Including text from another document

If you wrote certain passages of your book in separate Word document, odds are that you’ll want to copy those parts to the Word template that you’re using now (instead of having to retype everything). To make sure the copying works flawlessly, it is important that you use the option ‘paste special’ instead of the regular ‘paste’.

Follow the following steps to copy the text without any problems:

  • Copy the text you want to include.
  • In your book, put the cursor where you want to paste the text.
  • Click on the small arrow below ‘Paste’ and click ‘Paste special’.
  • In the next screen, choose the option ‘unformatted text’.
  • Your text has now been pasted without the original formatting, which will ensure that no problems will arise in the future.

Formatting text

Formatting text in Word can be done in various ways. One way is quite simple; the other is slightly more complicated. However, the advantage of the more complicated way is that our converter will provide a more accurate result.

Simple formatting

Simple formatting can be done using the options in the ‘home’ tab. To format the text, select the text that you wish to edit. Then use one of the following functions (shown in the red circle above):

  • Font: Click on the arrow on the right side of the field showing the font name (in this example it’s ‘Arial’).
  • Font size: Click on the arrow on the right side of the field showing the font size (in this example it’s ‘11’).
  • Bold, italic, underlined and strikethrough: Use the buttons ‘B’, ‘I’, ‘U’ and ‘ABC’.
  • Font color: Click on the arrow on the right side of the colour button. Next, you can select a color and apply it.

To align text or create bullet lists/numbered list, you can use the options shown in the green circle:

  • Bullet list: Use the button with bullets to create a bullet list. By clicking on the arrow on the right side of the button, you can change the icon used for the bullets.
  • Numbered list: Use the button with bullets to create a numbered list. By clicking on the arrow on the right side of the button, you can change the type of numbering (e.g. alphabetic instead of numerical)
  • Indentation: You can increase or decrease the indentation of the text (or bullet list) using the buttons with paragraphs and a blue arrow to the left or to the right.
  • Aligning text: There are four options for text alignment: align left, centre, right and ‘justify’. The option ‘justify’ aligns the text on the left as well as the right side of the page (making the text look like a rectangular block).
  • Line spacing: using the button with lines and two blue arrows, it’s possible to modify the line spacing of the selected paragraph. When you click on the button, you can select the line spacing that you wish to use.

Advanced formatting (better conversion)

When using this method, your book will be formatted using so called ‘styles’. We will create styles for basic text, chapter headings, subheadings, and every other type of content that is formatted differently from the basic text. Using styles will ensure a better conversion by our publishing platform.

FORMATTING BASIC TEXT

Undoubtedly, you’ll want most of the text in your book to have the same format. Word uses a style to define the formatting of your text. This style is calling ‘Standard’. Modifying the formatting of this style works as follows:

  • In the ‘home’ tab at the top of the screen, right click on the style ‘Standard’ and select ‘Modify’. The following screen will appear:
  • To change the font, font size, font color etc., click on the button ‘Format’ at the bottom of the screen and select the option ‘Font’. In the next screen, you’ll be able to choose a font, font size, font color etc.
  • To modify the alignment, line spacing or paragraph spacing, click on the button ‘Format’ at the bottom of the screen and select ‘Paragraph’.
  • Tip: If you set a white space between paragraphs and you want to create a new line without the white space, use the key combination ‘shift+enter’ (instead of just ‘enter’).

CHAPTER HEADINGS

In Word, it’s possible to automatically number and view headings. In the publishing industry, a few standard forms for formatting chapter headings exist. For a few examples, we will discuss how to create these chapter headings in your document.

Example 1
This is one of the basic types of formatting for chapter headings that is often used in books. It’s also one of the easiest types to create in Word.

Follow the following steps to create this heading:

  • On the ‘home’ tab, in the group ‘Styles’, select the style ‘Heading 1’ and type your chapter title.
  • You can add automatic numbering by putting the cursor on the heading title, followed by clicking ‘multilevel list’ and selecting the list using numbers with ‘Heading 1’ written behind it.
  • After you added the numbering, formatting the heading works similar to formatting the basic text: by right clicking ‘Heading 1’ and selecting ‘Modify’. This example uses the font Garamond 16pt in Bold.
  • Next, the paragraph margins used are 36pt ‘before’ and 48pt ‘after’.
  • Finally, all chapter headings are automatically moved to a new page. To do this, select ‘paragraph’ (after clicking the ‘Format’ button) and select the tab ‘Line and Page Breaks’. In this tab, tick the box next to ‘page break before’.

Example 2
This example is slightly more complicated to create in Word, but it is an often-used heading layout.

You can create this layout as follows:

  • On the ‘home’ tab, in the group ‘Styles’, select the style ‘Heading 1’ and type your chapter title.
  • Adding the numbering is done by clicking ‘Multilevel list’ and selecting ‘Define new multilevel list’). In the next screen, click on ‘More’ in the bottom left corner. Subsequently, copy the settings from the image below:
  • After you’ve applied the aforementioned settings, place the cursor behind the number (thus, before the title) and use the key combination ‘shift+enter’ to move the title to the next line.

After setting up the numbering, you will need to make a few adjustments to the style itself. This works in a similar fashion as the basic text:

  • Right click on the style ‘Heading 1’ at the top of the screen and select ‘Modify’. In this example the settings are as follows:
  • Font: Garamond 16pt, in Bold
  • Paragraph: margin before/after 36pt/30pt; line spacing: double
  • Finally all chapter headings are automatically moved to a new page. See example 1 on how to set this up.

AUTOMATIC TABLE OF CONTENTS

If you’ve created your chapter headings using the ‘Heading 1’ style, you can let Word generate an automatic table of contents for your book. You can do this in the following way:

  • At the top of the screen, click on the tab ‘References’
  • Next, click on ‘Table of Contents’ and select the layout that you like.

Page numbers

Practically every book has page numbers and the page numbers are usually shown at the bottom of the page.

Page numbers on every page

It’s very easy to have the page numbers formatted identically on every page.

At the top of the screen, click on ‘Insert’ and select ‘Page number’. You will be offered the choice between adding page numbers at the top or bottom of the page. After choosing either the top or bottom, you can choose the page number design that you’d like use.

Page numbers start on a specific page in the book

In Word it’s possible to have the page numbering start on a specific page. You might not want to start the page numbering on the first page of your Word document, but on the first page of the actual story. You can do this in the following way:

  • Place your cursor at the end of the page, before the page where the numbering should start.
  • Next, click on the tab ‘Page layout’
  • In this tab, click on ‘Breaks’ and select ‘Next page’ under the heading ‘Section breaks’.
  • Next, place the cursor on the page where you wish to start the page numbering.
  • Click ‘Insert’ at the top of the screen and select ‘Footer’. In the menu that appears click ‘Edit footer’ (on the bottom)
  • Your cursor will be moved to the footer and at the top of the screen a menu with footer modification options will appear. In this menu uncheck the box ‘link to previous’.
  • In the same menu you can immediately insert page numbers by clicking on ‘Page numbers’.

Note: if you’d like to add page numbers to the header instead of footer of the page, you can follow the same instructions, the only difference being that you should select ‘Header’ instead of ‘Footer’.

Different page numbers on the left and right page

Word has the possibility to format page numbers on the right and left page of your book differently. Because of this option, it’s possible to show the page numbers on the outer edge of the pages. Follow the following steps to set this up:

  • At the top of the screen click on ‘Insert’ to open the Insert tab. Next, click ‘Footer’ and select ‘Edit footer’.
  • Your cursor will be moved to the footer and at the top of the screen a menu with footer modification options will appear. Select ‘different odd and even pages’.
  • Next, you can use the button ‘Page numbers’ to add page numbers to the odd and even pages. Note: even pages are always the left pages of your book and odd pages are always the right pages of your book.