Text Layout and General Book Design

When it comes to text layout, whether you are selling your book or making it for friends and family, there are a variety of things you will need to do to format and layout your book to ensure a consistent feel throughout that will make it easy and inviting for your readers to read.

While the exact requirements will vary by book type and your own interests and ideas, there are a few key pages that our text layout and general book design services can help with:

Header

• Left header is typically your book title and so will be the same on every content page
• Title pages and most of your additional pages don’t have a header, just a blank space
• Right header can be the author(s) name(s) or the chapter or section title
• If you want the header to change by section, you can set this up in Microsoft Word
• Your header font and size is generally different to your main book text so it is clearly different for the reader

Footer

• Footer is typically your page numbers
• Title pages and most of your additional pages don’t have a footer, just a blank space
• You might like to use Roman numerals instead of numbers for some of your additional pages or your introduction, you can set this up in Microsoft Word by creating sections
• Your footer font and size is generally different to your main book text so it is clearly different for the reader

Margins

• Margins need to be set so that none of your text is cutting off during the printing process
• Your left and right margins need to be bigger than the top and bottom so that the text doesn’t print too close to the spine
• You do not need a bleed for text pages, just the margin. If you are using photos in the text pages, you just need to keep them within the margins

Font and size of text

• Font needs to be something that is clear and easy to read, cursive fonts, for example, aren’t easy to read
• Serif fonts, for example Times New Roman, are easier to read in a printed book. Sans-serif fonts such as Arial, are easy to read in digital books
• The size of your text will depend on your intended audience, for example if you’re aiming for an older audience, large print might be more appealing
• Spacing between lines and between paragraphs depends on your audience and the type of book

Chapter titles

• A new chapter generally starts on a new page. You might want to start all your chapters on the right page, in which case the left page would be left blank if the previous chapter finished on a right page.
• The font and size of the chapter titles needs to be consistent throughout the book. It doesn’t matter if you write Chapter 1, Chapter One, Chapter I or One, as long as it is consistent for every chapter throughout the book, the same goes for spacing above and below the title
• If you are making a contents page, setting up your chapter titles as headings in Microsoft Word will make it easier for you to make an automatic contents page

Book size

• The size of your book is up to you. Handle some books you have at home and see what size feels right for you, think about how easy it is to hold in one or two hands
• A book such as a history book might work well being more of a textbook size
• If you plan on selling your books and think you might be mailing books to buyers, take a look at postage rates to see if your book will fit in a reasonable sized packaging to keep shipping costs down