Word uses the chosen printer driver to know what the printable area is, but you won't actually be printing from Word. Format the booklet as you like. I used margins of.35 all around. Sometimes if margins are too small, Word will cut off text, as the printer driver tells Word it can't print that close to the edge. This post was excerpted and adapted from How to Format Your Book Using Microsoft Word on a Mac. About BookBaby Based in the Philadelphia-area, BookBaby is a team of authors, poets, bloggers, and artists — so they know the thrills and challenges of bringing a book into this world. Instead, set indentation to 1.25cm in Word through Format-Paragraph-Section. Indicate scene breaks by inserting a blank line and centering the hash sign (#) in the center of the line. Insert a key word from the title in the top right header with the page number and your last name. E.g., Smith - Manuscript - page 1. Begin chapters on new pages. For example, I had over 2,000 downloads during a free promotion for my Kindle book How to Write a Non-Fiction Book in 3 ½ Days, which is a book I created using the exact six steps above and was released before the new Kindle Fire HD went on the market. Shortly after the new HD appeared, I received an email from Amazon stating there was a.
I recently had the opportunity to attend the 22nd national conference of ACES: The Society for Editing. One of my favorite sessions this year was presented by Rhonda Bracey of CyberText Consulting, who shared time-saving tips for Microsoft Word. Her blog is a great resource for shortcuts, formatting tips and other useful features.
Unfortunately for me and my MacBook, CyberText's tips are all written for Windows users. So for all you other Mac users out there, here are a few translations. The tips in this post are all ways to show hidden formatting in Word, which can help you diagnose problems when text doesn't look right or won't go where you want it to.
The instructions below are for Microsoft Word for Mac, version 16. All of the options for showing formatting and styles will only show up on your screen—they will not affect the printed version of a document.
Formatting marks
Formatting marks may look like clutter if you aren't used to them, but they hold a lot of useful information. For example, uneven paragraph spacing could be caused by soft line breaks, section breaks or a style applied to a paragraph. With visible formatting marks, you can tell what is happening in your document at a glance. You can learn more about formatting marks, including what each symbol means, in the CyberText Newsletter. To turn these marks on and off, click the pilcrow icon (¶) on the Home ribbon or use the keyboard shortcut, ⌘ + 8.
Style labels
There are two ways to do this on a Mac. The simple way is to open the Styles Pane using the button on the far right of the Home ribbon. At the bottom of the Styles Pane, check the box to show styles guides. This will randomly assign a number and color as a label for each style. The labels will appear next to each style in the Style Pane and in the left margin next to each paragraph that uses the style.
If you would rather see the style names next to each paragraph, open the Preferences window from the main menu. Click 'View' and find the preference for 'style area width.' Increase the width to at least an inch (you can adjust it later if you want to change the size). Close the Preferences window and go back to the ribbon. Use the View ribbon to switch to Draft view. All of your paragraphs should now have style names listed next to them. You can return to the standard view by clicking 'Print Layout' on the far left of the View ribbon.
Bookmarks
Bookmarks are useful for creating links within a document or between multiple documents. To show bookmarks in your document, open Preferences, then click 'View' and check the bookmark box. This will put gray brackets around any bookmarked text.
Field Shading
Word has a few special features to help automate tasks like numbering pages and figures or creating a table of contents. These features look like normal text, but they are actually fields that Word fills in according to a set pattern. Entering text manually into these fields stops them from functioning correctly, so it's important to be able to distinguish them from normal text.
To make fields visible, open Preferences, then click 'View' and select your preference for field shading. Rhonda recommends always shading fields, but you can also opt to shade them only when they are selected.
Next time you find yourself struggling with stubborn formatting or misplaced links, try using these tips to uncover the problem.
Know any other great Word tricks? Tell us about them on Twitter.
Related Links:
If you're a writer, you're probably no stranger to Microsoft Word. But when it comes to self-publishing, you may not know how to format your Word document for book printing.
We'll walk you through the steps to format your Word document for printing a book that is a 5.8' x 8.3' finished size on a Mac, or a 5.5' x 8.5' finished size on a PC.
Editor's note: This tutorial uses settings and options from the latest version of Microsoft Word, for Mac or a PC. If you're operating on an older version, some of the prompts may be slightly different from what you see below.
Getting Your Document Started
When you originally typed your manuscript, you more than likely opened a blank Word document and went full steam ahead.
Whether this is the case or you have yet to get started, you'll need to open a brand-new Word document that you can copy and paste your text into for the best formatting results.
1. Create a New Document, and Click ‘Layout'
Mac:
PC:
2. Click on ‘Size' and choose 5.83 x 8.26 inches for Macs. For a PC, you can set a custom size. 5.5 x 8.5 is a common book printing choice that is easy to work with.
Mac:
PC:
3. Next, click the ‘Margins' tab, click ‘Custom Margins' at the bottom of the options, and change Top, Bottom, Left and Right margins to 0.75'.
Mac:
PC:
It is important to note that there's flexibility in these values. If you want larger or smaller margins on the left and right, that's okay. We recommend never making the left or right margins smaller than a half-inch, as text can get lost in the spine of the book after it's bound.
Additionally, depending on what you have in your headers and footers, you may want to make your top and bottom margins larger or smaller.
If you're going to have the title of your book in the header, your margin size defines how much room you have for the title. The same rule applies for your page numbers if they're in the footer.
Headers and Footers
As previously mentioned, the margin sizes you assign to the top and bottom of your document defines the amount of space you will have to place running title headers or page numbers.
Here's how to properly format your headers and footers on a Microsoft document before printing, for both a Mac and PC:
Format Word 2018 In Mac For Fiction Writing Paper
1. Under the ‘Insert' tab, select the ‘Header' menu and click on ‘Edit Header.'
2. Enter the title of your book or whatever text you would like to appear at the top of your pages.
Format Word 2018 In Mac For Fiction Writing Paper
3. From this same screen, you can also edit your footer, where you'll probably place your page numbers.
There is no exact way to modify your headers and footers, it's your choice to design them as you see fit for your book.
Create and Print
Format Word 2018 In Mac For Fiction Writing Websites
Your document is now prepared to either paste text from an existing Word document, or you can begin typing your manuscript.
If you have problems or questions throughout the formatting or uploading process, let us know. Yosemite for mac download. Feel free to call us anytime and ask to speak with one of our designers, or email us at [email protected] help you work through any issues you may run across during your manuscript design process.
Format Word 2018 In Mac For Fiction Writing Free
When your book is ready to print, you can upload your file and receive a free quote based on your book's size, amount of copies you'd like to print, and paper and binding options.
Format Word 2018 In Mac For Fiction Writing Style
After you've taken care of the Word doc, you need to figure out which binding to use for your self-published book >
