Formatting and Formatting Again
One of the good things about self-publishing is that I can make changes to my books anytime I want to.
One of the bad things about self-publishing - at least the way I do it - is that I do all the formatting myself.
I have a template that I've used for several books. But for Dad's biography, I've changed it up a bit, following some of the convention from KDP's format. There are actually three styles for book text:
- Autobiography - which is the text that Dad wrote, either in his autobiography files I inherited or in his Extraordinary Events of My Life book, which he self-published.
- Book Text, which is the generally used font for anything I wrote or for most quotes
- Quote, which I've used for sections that are from plaques and presentations; that kind of thing
Using styles is second nature to me. I do it in my day job, all day long. Most proposals have at least 5-6 styles, maybe more. So, using and changing styles is de rigeur for me.
BUT, what I've been playing with a lot today is tables and page breaks.
I use tables for placing the photos. This is a formatting trick I learned from my desktop publisher friends. Rather than using a text box or just inserting the picture with a textbox caption, you create a table with two rows. The photo goes in the first row, while the caption goes in the second row. Then, you delete the borders of the table, and it looks as though the photo and caption are nicely aligned, without the chance of the text box popping around, as they are wont to do in Word. I've done this for years for proposals, so it was not a big deal to do.
But...when I PDF'd the Word file and uploaded it into KDP print preview, the tables didn't "stay". And some of the photos went wonky. So, one of the other things I did today was make sure that all the tables were centered and 100% in sizing (at least all the ones that are full page in width). This solved the problem in the KDP print preview for paperback and hard cover (Kindle is a whole other thing; I'm not sure how to do things for that since I can't use a PDF for Kindle).
Next, I had to tackle page breaks. In Word, there are multiple kinds of page breaks. Most people use Ctrl-Enter for a regular page break, like between chapters of a book. And then there's the Section Break/Next Page, which creates a new section. This has the advantage of allowing you to change the headers and footers in that section - if you do it right - without changing them in the other sections of the book. I have a lot of experience with this, as well, from my day job. It's not hard; you just have to be patient and make sure to do things in the right order. And in this case, I had to insert Section Breaks three times.
First, I wanted all the introductory sections (Dedication, Foreword, Preface) to start on the left page. That just feels right, rather than having them run together. So, that meant inserting a "code" to make all those pages "odd" after their Section Breaks. Okay. I did that.
Second, at the end of the book, there are two appendices. The Endnotes automatically started on the left page, so that felt right. However, the Index of Names ran right before the Endnotes. And when I looked in the print preview, it seemed odd to have the Index "run right into" the Endnotes. So, I put a page break in there. That's all fine, but then I had to delete the header and footer, without screwing up the existing headers and footers for the existing sections. Not hard, just tedious.
Finally, when I looked at the book again in the KDP print preview, I realized that the last page was an even page, which meant that the Index of People was right after the last page of the biography. This, again, felt wrong. So, I yet again inserted a page break and deleted the headers and footers, making sure not to screw up the existing headers and footers.
It's a good thing I know a lot about formatting in Word. Whew.
One of the bad things about self-publishing - at least the way I do it - is that I do all the formatting myself.
I have a template that I've used for several books. But for Dad's biography, I've changed it up a bit, following some of the convention from KDP's format. There are actually three styles for book text:
- Autobiography - which is the text that Dad wrote, either in his autobiography files I inherited or in his Extraordinary Events of My Life book, which he self-published.
- Book Text, which is the generally used font for anything I wrote or for most quotes
- Quote, which I've used for sections that are from plaques and presentations; that kind of thing
Using styles is second nature to me. I do it in my day job, all day long. Most proposals have at least 5-6 styles, maybe more. So, using and changing styles is de rigeur for me.
BUT, what I've been playing with a lot today is tables and page breaks.
I use tables for placing the photos. This is a formatting trick I learned from my desktop publisher friends. Rather than using a text box or just inserting the picture with a textbox caption, you create a table with two rows. The photo goes in the first row, while the caption goes in the second row. Then, you delete the borders of the table, and it looks as though the photo and caption are nicely aligned, without the chance of the text box popping around, as they are wont to do in Word. I've done this for years for proposals, so it was not a big deal to do.
But...when I PDF'd the Word file and uploaded it into KDP print preview, the tables didn't "stay". And some of the photos went wonky. So, one of the other things I did today was make sure that all the tables were centered and 100% in sizing (at least all the ones that are full page in width). This solved the problem in the KDP print preview for paperback and hard cover (Kindle is a whole other thing; I'm not sure how to do things for that since I can't use a PDF for Kindle).
Next, I had to tackle page breaks. In Word, there are multiple kinds of page breaks. Most people use Ctrl-Enter for a regular page break, like between chapters of a book. And then there's the Section Break/Next Page, which creates a new section. This has the advantage of allowing you to change the headers and footers in that section - if you do it right - without changing them in the other sections of the book. I have a lot of experience with this, as well, from my day job. It's not hard; you just have to be patient and make sure to do things in the right order. And in this case, I had to insert Section Breaks three times.
First, I wanted all the introductory sections (Dedication, Foreword, Preface) to start on the left page. That just feels right, rather than having them run together. So, that meant inserting a "code" to make all those pages "odd" after their Section Breaks. Okay. I did that.
Second, at the end of the book, there are two appendices. The Endnotes automatically started on the left page, so that felt right. However, the Index of Names ran right before the Endnotes. And when I looked in the print preview, it seemed odd to have the Index "run right into" the Endnotes. So, I put a page break in there. That's all fine, but then I had to delete the header and footer, without screwing up the existing headers and footers for the existing sections. Not hard, just tedious.
Finally, when I looked at the book again in the KDP print preview, I realized that the last page was an even page, which meant that the Index of People was right after the last page of the biography. This, again, felt wrong. So, I yet again inserted a page break and deleted the headers and footers, making sure not to screw up the existing headers and footers.
It's a good thing I know a lot about formatting in Word. Whew.
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