CreateSpace and Hyphenation

[C.M.J.]

I spent 8 hours yesterday editing the typography of books 1 and 2 of my Rift series after I’d set the Word files to automatically hyphenate so that there wouldn’t be so much white space in the paperback versions. Big mistake. When I uploaded them to CreateSpace, Amazon’s conversion process changed the hyphenation, meaning that I’ll have to review them again to ensure that there aren’t any widows, orphans, or giant gobs of blankness between words. Sheesh!

Does anyone have experience with this? Have you found a way to bend CreateSpace (or Word for that matter) to your will? I’d love to hear from you.

[Scott]

If you only wasted eight hours you're lucky. I spent weeks. I got what I considered the best looking product with justified text, no hyphens and widow/orphan control turned off. I have a couple of chapters with the last page having only one or two words but I could not find a way to prevent that.

Formatting eBooks is a whole lot easier!

[Laurel]

CreateSpace doesn't mind occassional hyphenation. But I cannot imagine anyone hyphenating things that do not normally hyphenate. Are you hyphenating INSTEAD of using spaces? That sounds VERY hard to read!

Could you give a couple paragraphs as they appear in your word doc?

[C.M.J.]

Thanks, Laurel and Scott. The sad thing is that I originally had it as you suggested, Scott, but there was still some noticeable white space so I thought I'd try automatic hyphenation. Grr. Never again.

No, Laurel, I didn't hyphenate it manually; I used the Word automatic function (which, by the way, breaks some words incorrectly, making even more work--double grr). What I meant was that CreateSpace changed Word's hyphenation. I couldn't believe it.

Today I changed the text back to the justified, unhyphenated version without widow/orphan control and then cheated by using 11.5-point font instead of 12-point to close up some of the more egregious spacing. You might want to try that, Scott, to eliminate the stray words. It looks fine in Word, but I'm going to download the CreateSpace PDF proof to see whether the mixture of 12-point with occasional 11.5-point looks all right in final form. Should be interesting.

[Lex]

Greetings CMJ - I've had mostly success with uploading files to Createspace. Here's how I do it:

- Download the createspace formatted, blank document for the appropriate size book you want, and copy paste your document into it.

- Set the entire manuscript thus:
- From Word's HOME page open the paragraph dialogue box and click "indents and spacing"
- Set your paragraphs/MS to:
-right/left justified
-outline level - body text
-indentation left 0 , right 0
-special - first line, by 0.5"
-spacing before 0 pt , after 0 pt line spacing "single"
- Insure entire MS is set to these defaults (afterwards, you can go through and center some lines such as Chapter Titles, etc)
- Read through document and adjust your paragraphs so that the entire page is filled. If a paragraph doesn't break at the beginning of the next page.. ie you have large blank spaces at the bottom of a page, break up the paragraph so that the page is full. Because of the line indent, the next page will being 0.5" indent on the next page.
- Highlight this indentation, right click, open the paragraph dialogue box and reset line indentation to 0. Only that one line. Your text will move left.
- Don't use page breaks except at the end of a chapter.
- Don't hyphenate.

I know the single line adjustments are tedious, but this system has worked for me, every time!

Feel free to send me a note if you have questions or if you think I can be of more assistance.

[C.M.J.]

Hi, Lex,

Thanks for the detailed info!

I'll give that a whirl if what I tried doesn't work out.

[Lex]

C.M.J. wrote: "Hi, Lex,

Thanks for the detailed info!

I'll give that a whirl if what I tried doesn't work out."

Dang, CMJ... I forgot to add the most important part. Don't upload a Word file...convert to PDF before you send it up.

[Laurel]

Lex wrote: "C.M.J. wrote: "Hi, Lex,

Thanks for the detailed info!

I'll give that a whirl if what I tried doesn't work out."

Dang, CMJ... I forgot to add the most important part. Don't upload a Word file......"

i never send CS word files. The pagination messes up. The only way to keep the page numbers in sync with the table of contents is to send a pdf. It took some trial and error with their customer service to figure that one out! :)

[Shaun]

One trick that helps a lot, is going into the Page Layout under Page Size, set the size to the same as what you have your book set to be. It can look a little odd with the margins set, but you have to keep in mind the binding takes up a bit of space too.

I uploaded my book straight to Createspace from Word and didn't have any issues. There was a blog post somewhere I found with detailed instructions on how to set it all up properly, took me about an hour and a half to two hours. I just wish I'd bookmarked it now.

[C.M.J.]

Thanks for all the great info, everyone! Here's hoping...

[[deleted user]]

C.M.J. wrote: "I spent 8 hours yesterday editing the typography of books 1 and 2 of my Rift series after I’d set the Word files to automatically hyphenate so that there wouldn’t be so much white space in the pape..."

I was advised to leave off the automatic hyphen before I began writing, but sometimes a word that I must hyphenate (when a noun follows) gets goofed up if I place it toward the end of a sentence. Any ideas on that? On my travel tip book, the format itself causes some "white space" problems.

[C.M.J.]

I can think of two cheats that might work. First, try making the font smaller on the hyphenated word only; for example, change it from 12-point to 11.5. Second, would a hard return after the word that precedes the hyphenated one work? Can anyone speak to that?

[Justin]

I used Createspace and I did not come across this problem but then again I could be totally blind to my own work. Also I don't use Word so..the only thing I can figure is that maybe sometimes when you go to transfer writing from word to CS sometimes it doesn't do what it's suppose to? C.M.J I hope you got everything sorted out, I know when it comes to getting things right, using the right things on programs and formatting it can be quite frustrating.

[C.M.J.]

Justin wrote: "I used Createspace and I did not come across this problem but then again I could be totally blind to my own work. Also I don't use Word so..the only thing I can figure is that maybe sometimes when ..."

Thanks, Justin!

[G.G.]

On that note, since people seems to have problems with formatting, do you know anyone who has ever used a third party for their formatting such as
http://createspace-formatting.com/pac...
or
http://indiemobi.wordpress.com/

If so, were you satisfied?
Oh and how does one know how many pages the book will be? (Might be a stupid question but I sincerely have no clue.)

[C.M.J.]

Okay, I’m back.

Laurel, I wasn't sure how to show you what was wrong by providing a sample of text because the posts get formatted whether you want them to or not.

After some trial and error with everyone’s suggestions—and after it finally occurred to me that there must be some type of kerning function in Word (2003 is the version I use)—here’s what I did, and it worked well: I turned off widows/orphans and hyphenation. Then I selected the text of the entire document and clicked Format, Font, Character Spacing, Condensed, By 0.2 pt. The Kerning box should be checked, and I set it at 18 points and above, but that might apply only to the type of headings I used, so don’t quote me.

Then I went through the book, looked for widows and orphans, and repaired them by changing the font to 11.5 for a word or a few words, enough to eliminate the little beggars. You might be able to do the same thing by adjusting the compression. Dunno.

If a line still had a lot of white space, I adjusted it with either compression or expansion of the line itself, parts of the lines above and below, or some combination. You have to fiddle with it until it bends to your will.

The result was 1,000% better. It’s not an easy fix, and I’m not sure there is one, but in the end the text looked as if it had been professionally typeset.

One caveat: The kerning reduced the length of the book by 14 pages, and I’m waiting to hear from my cover designer whether that means she’ll have to redo it.

[Hock]

I sympathize with those who report problems with Word. My biggest beef is that the different versions put the commands one needs in different places; Word 2003 versus Word 2007, etc. (I actually started with Word 97.)

That said, the advice to upload only in pdf is in my experience critical. It is the only way I have found to have Createspace produce your book exactly as you uploaded it. Fortunately, that is the same in 2003 and 2007, Save As/Publish--pdf.

[C.M.J.]

Hock wrote: "I sympathize with those who report problems with Word. My biggest beef is that the different versions put the commands one needs in different places; Word 2003 versus Word 2007, etc. (I actually st..."

I have Windows 8 and can't get it to make a PDF or I'd gladly do it that way. I'm sure there's some easy way to do it, but it escapes me.

Oddly enough, for me it's been "what you see is what you get" when I upload Word and CreateSpace makes the PDF. It was the kerning that was wrong and was creating the white space in Word after I justified the document; I just had to figure that out and correct it. CreateSpace may still mess it up when I upload it, but as I said, I've been getting out of CS what I put in from Word. I'm hoping I'll have time to experiment with it tonight. We shall see...

[Lance]

C.M.J. wrote: "I have Windows 8 and can't get it to make a PDF or I'd gladly do it that way. I'm sure there's some easy way to do it, but it escapes me...."

Do you have Word 2013? If so, I believe the "save to PDF" option was yanked from that. That was one of the various reasons I stayed with Word 2010.

[Regina]

For what it's worth, my last proof copy was a little weird in that it was very slightly crooked on the page. It was like the bottom edge was cut oddly or something. However, the finished, non-proof books came out consistently perfect. Very, very nice quality on my trade paperbacks.

As for widows and orphans, I have pics with text wrap in my books. We just went through each page and manually checked every single line to make sure it was perfect.

Yeah, it was a heck of a lot of work. It was tedious and I was at the point of snatching myself bald. But it was worth it, because the finished product is about as close to perfect as me and my crew could make it.

So I guess my point is this: take the time. You worked hard on your book. Work just a little harder and make it perfect.

We laid it all out in InDesign, which is an Adobe layout program.

[G.G.]

For kicks I tried a free program called Fromdoctopdf. It turned the doc into a pdf exactly the way it was saved in doc. So as far as I have seen so far, there was no problem with hyphenation. (The doc had been formatted according to 'Building your book for Kindle', which is free ebook on amazon).

It seemed too easy. I must be doing something wrong...

(Now to figure out how to add the cover to the pdf (in one piece: Front, spine, back)... )

[C.M.J.]

Lance wrote: "C.M.J. wrote: "I have Windows 8 and can't get it to make a PDF or I'd gladly do it that way. I'm sure there's some easy way to do it, but it escapes me...."

Do you have Word 2013? If so, I believe..."

Hi, Lance,

No, I have Word 2003 (yes, I know: a dinosaur!). I edit for medical journals and use many macros, which may have axed any PDF option 2003 had.

[C.M.J.]

Regina wrote: "For what it's worth, my last proof copy was a little weird in that it was very slightly crooked on the page. It was like the bottom edge was cut oddly or something. However, the finished, non-proof..."

Thanks for the pep talk, Regina! Yep, I'm gritting my teeth, going through each book, and getting the little buzzards right because I wouldn't be able to stand the look of them otherwise. The first one is done--it's up to the proof stage--and it looks a gazillion times better. It is worth the time it takes.

[C.M.J.]

Ginette wrote: "For kicks I tried a free program called Fromdoctopdf. It turned the doc into a pdf exactly the way it was saved in doc. So as far as I have seen so far, there was no problem with hyphenation. (The ..."

I'll have to check that program out, Ginette. Thanks!

[Justin]

I used to use WordPad...yeah I know what your probably thinking..oh god! I used it back in school and I'd turn in papers and the teacher would ask you have wordpad dont you? Couldn't figure out how they knew. I now use WordPerfect which is a lot better. It's not Microsoft Word but still works as such. Although sometimes it's hard to send people files because they dont support WP files. Other than that it works well and I don't have too many problems. When editing though I have to bypass most suggestions because their suggested changes would actually make the sentences and words wrong..its weird.

[Philip]

I've given up with Word and I am now using Scrivener which formats for all the main outputs from one manuscript.

[A.L.]

I had the trial for Scrivener and it looked Ok. I might well get it at some point. I am not great with learning new programmes so I might nab the trial again and have a play.

[Regina]

I meant to say this and didn't: If you are using a "find and replace" function, I beseech you not to let the program fix anything automatically. Not unless you've done something drastic like change a character's name or have a difficult name you've screwed up the spelling a couple times.

Use it manually and look at each and every word it finds and change it yourself. If you don't, it will find a way to mess you up. Trust me on this.

[[deleted user]]

I think Lex in message 5 has it about right.

The main thing is to set your page to the dimensions of your book. So if you are creating a 6x9 book then your page in Word should be 6x9.

Don't break up paragraphs at the bottom of a page though, because if you do you will get a short last line there, followed by a new one on the next page that is left justified. It will look like a section break. Use the widow orphan control to make sure you fill pages to the bottom. Check each page if necessary and deal with the paragraphs that are affected.

Use mirrored margins because those towards the centre (binding) of the book need to be slightly larger than those on the outside edge.

Don't mess with different text sizes, it will be noticed.

Always convert to PDF either by saving to, or printing to one of the many conversion programmes that are free to download, such as PrimoPDF.

The PDF file will/should represent your book as it will be printed, so the number of pages and which side of the page the chapter headings are on should all be fixed by you at that point. There maybe some additional blank pages put in by the binding process, but this is the only difference.

What Regina said above is also important. It always surprises me how many other words will contain the exact text you change automatically, and you will only see them when it is too late!

Be patient and methodical.

[Martin]

While going through the galley proof of my latest novel, I noticed the hyphens had been stripped out of manually hyphenated words -- that is, joined words rather than word auto-hyphenated at the end of a line. For instance, auto-hyphenated would show up as auto hyphenated.

[Nancy]

Ginette wrote: "On that note, since people seems to have problems with formatting, do you know anyone who has ever used a third party for their formatting such as
http://createspace-formatting.com/pac...
or
..."
Ginette,

I have used Createspace formatting services and have been pleased with the result. The word count doesn't matter in the Kindle version, but the paper back page numbers are
in the book. It might be well to check out the procedures in their formatting.

[Robert]

The best solution I found is to download doPDF. That's freeware that lets you print to a PDF file from Word. Then upload that PDF file and it comes out exactly as you uploaded it.

It's really simple to do and gives you a lot more control. The CreateSpace bulletin boards have a lot of info and advice on this.