font size CreateSpace

[E.S.]

Trying to decide font size for a CreateSpace print book.

If you print, on your own printer, your pdf that you submit to CreateSpace, does it match the size of the final book? Seems like it should, but sometimes the obvious things don't work. :)

[M.G.]

If you print out a pdf copy of a page of your manuscript, it should be very close.

Sometimes you can find font and font size of various books buried in the copyright page. Useful for comparison.

The other thing I noticed when comparing my pdfs to books off my shelf is that the line spacing doesn't correspond with Word's "single" or "double" -- it's somewhere in between. There's a way to adjust it manually in Word, but I can't remember off the top of my head.

I recently downloaded a trial version of the Adobe Creative Cloud. I'm about to format my next book, and decided it's worth paying a month's subscription for Adobe's Indesign. In addition to other sophisticated layout features, there's something called "optical kerning" which helps the visual spacing from looking too "gappy" once you justify the margins.

Good luck!

[E.S.]

I looked in some books but didn't see the font size, but I'll look again. I'm using Libre Office - like word - and the special spacing you're talking about is called "leading." You're right that double will be too much and single to little.

I was aware that spacing with justified margins could be a problem - I was hoping it wouldn't be too bad, but it sounds like it is. Good tip! I didn't know you could subscribe for just a month to InDesign - I'll check into that.

Thank you for all your suggestions!

[E.S.]

M.G., you have sent me searching. :) It is best to search now rather than later.

Now that you mention it, I think the designer working on the textbook when I was an editor used to adjust this by hand for problem lines.

I'm wondering - did you enable hyphens and the kerning still looked bad? I did look through a stack of MG books and most of them do allow hyphens, I was surprised.

[M.G.]

I did use hyphens, and then went back through and manually adjusted some of the lines. I think I ended up with an acceptable result, but after I compared text where the software adjusts the spacing, I notice the difference. Maybe it's best not to overthink it! It all takes about a zillion more hours than you think it will!

[E.S.]

Good to know you tried everything I would. :) If I think about this long enough maybe it will save me a ton of time - if I'm not to hard-headed!

Knowing it will take way more time than I think it will, and my perfectionist tendencies, has made me put this off.

I have found that there is an open-source software for typesetting, TeX, but I think maybe to use it you have to code in your adjustments. Hence, open-source. Or maybe if it doesn't do what you want it to you *can* go in and code. I'm waiting until my tech support comes home to look at it more fully.

[E.S.]

I went over to Amazon to see if it was Fizz and Peppers you put into print - congratulations on the Cybil Award nomination!

[M.G.]

Thanks E.S.!

[Dixie]

I use about size 12 font, and used openoffice
then someone gave me the following note which I save and has helped me a lot


for kindle, go to tool bar, under format select page, when open choose format A5, width 5.83, height 8.27, portrait orientation, margins 0.30" all around

for paperback add page number to bottoms of pages
then format user, width 6.00" height 9.00", portrait, all margins 0.79 page layout right and left

[E.S.]

Dixie wrote: "I use about size 12 font, and used openoffice
then someone gave me the following note which I save and has helped me a lot

..."

Thanks! It helps to have a place to start!

[Dixie]

Welcome.