Word tips for e-book formatting

(Some tips are useful for paperback formatting, as well)

Use spell check!

Set up hyperlinks for external Web sites and email

Display invisible characters

File=>Options=>Display=>Show all formatting marks

Remove all headers and footers

This is required if you’ve already formatted your Word document and you now want to create an eBook version

Remove extra line breaks (do a search and replace)

1. Home ribbon: Replace
2. Click on More
3. Put cursor in “Find what” box
4. Click on Special
5. Click on “Paragraph Mark” TWICE
6. Put cursor in “Replace with” box
7. Click on Special
8. Click on “Paragraph Mark” ONCE
9. Click on “Replace All”

Add/keep page breaks (Ctrl-Enter)

Again, you would have these in already if you’ve formatted for paperback first

Remove extra spaces (do a search and replace)

1. Home ribbon: Replace
2. Click on More
3. Put cursor in “Find what” box
4. Hit the space bar TWICE
5. Put cursor in “Replace with” box
6. Hit the space bar ONCE
7. Click on “Replace All”

Remove all tabs (do a search and replace)

1. Home ribbon: Replace
2. Click on More
3. Put cursor in “Find what” box
4. Click on Special
5. Click on “Tab Character”
6. Put cursor in “Replace with” box
7. Delete everything in it—including spaces
8. Click on “Replace All”

Ensure “curly” quotes instead of straight (do a search and replace)

1. Home ribbon: Replace
2. Put cursor in “Find what” box
3. Enter a quote
4. Put cursor in “Replace with” box
5. Enter a quote
6. Click on “Replace All”

Ensure “curly” apostrophes instead of straight (do a search and replace)

1. Home ribbon: Replace
2. Put cursor in “Find what” box
3. Enter an apostrophe
4. Put cursor in “Replace with” box
5. Enter an apostrophe
6. Click on “Replace All”

Make sure you have em dashes instead of double dashes

1. Home ribbon: Replace
2. Put cursor in “Find what” box
3. Enter two dashes (hyphens)
4. Click on More
5. Put cursor in “Replace with” box
6. Click on Special
7. Select “Em Dash”
8. Click on “Replace All”

Remove spaces around em dashes

1. Home ribbon: Replace
2. Click on More
3. Put cursor in “Find what” box
4. Enter one space
5. Click on Special
6. Select “Em Dash”
7. Put cursor in “Replace with” box
8. Click on Special
9. Select “Em Dash”
10. Click on “Replace All”

Then…

11. Put cursor in “Find what” box
12. Click on Special
13. Select “Em Dash”
14. Enter one space
15. Put cursor in “Replace with” box
16. Click on Special
17. Select “Em Dash”
18. Click on “Replace All”

Make sure you have ellipses instead of “…”

1. Home ribbon: Replace
2. Put cursor in “Find what” box
3. Enter one space, three periods, and one more space
4. Put cursor in “Replace with” box
5. Enter three periods
6. Click on “Replace All”

 

Use styles

To indent

1. Open Styles window
2. Select particular style you want to change, such as “Normal”
3. Hover over paragraph mark
4. Click on “Select All XX Instances”
5. Click on “Modify”
6. Click on “Format” button
7. Click on Paragraph
8. Set “Special” drop-down to “First Line”
9. Add amount you want to indent

To make sure your first paragraphs aren’t indented

1. Highlight an example of a paragraph you want to change
2. Right click
3. Select “Styles”
4. Select “Save Selection as a New Quick Style”
5. Give it a name, such as “First paragraph”
6. Click on “Modify”
7. Modify as above, but set “Special” drop-down to “(none)”
8. If you want to add more space above the first paragraph, you can modify that here, as well

You can change font, size, type color, spacing, etc. in “Modify”

• Select readable fonts, such as Palatino Linotype or Georgia, Times Roman
• There should be no bold in the body of your text. Keep that to headers.

Keep your styles to a minimum

1. A style for the body, one for first paragraph
2. Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3

Avoid bullets

• E-readers don’t handle them well

Don’t use drop cap for the first letter

• E-readers don’t handle them well

For fiction, avoid images unless absolutely necessary

• Hard to control in e-readers