– Printing

Posts related to Printing issues

Edit in Print Preview

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Yes, Word is mostly WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) or at least pretty close, but sometimes you just need to see the final product as you are creating it. You can always flip back and forth between editing and Print Preview, but that’s a bit of a hassle. Fortunately, there is an option that used to be quickly available in Word that is still there…just hidden a bit. We’ll step you through the process of adding the button to give you access to that alternative editing method.

The first step is accessing the current settings for the toolbar. Click on the blue File tab on the left end of the ribbon, then select Options.

That will take you to the Options dialogue box. Once there, click on Quick Access Toolbar.

Now you need to “Choose commands from: All Commands”, then scroll down about three-quarters of the way to find the Print Preview Edit Mode command.

Add it to your toolbar and close the dialogue box. You should now have a new button available.

Click on that button and you’ll be put into a special Print Preview mode. By default, the Magnifier is turned on each time you get here, so once you find the pages you want to edit, just turn it off. Now you can adjust things around and see the changes to the printed page as you make them. Spend some time here and you’ll find all kinds of tricks to get paragraphs and pages to fit nicely. You can even see the blank pages in the final version that you’ve created with Odd and Even Page Breaks. (Of course, you can’t edit those blank pages, so your cursor will show a red not sign if you try.)

If you’re into shortcuts as much as I am, you’ll be happy to know that tapping on Alt will bring up shortcut hints, showing that (in my case), hitting 5 will go straight there.

Now that you can see what you’re doing, you could even work out the details of doing the formatting and layout of a book. Good luck!

BISAC Codes

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There are a lot of terms that authors should know, but two of the most confusing are ISBN and BISAC codes. Most authors have at least heard of ISBNs, but BISAC codes are just as important, if not more so. Where an ISBN will allow readers to buy your book, it may be the BISAC code and category that will help them find your book, so that’s the one we’ll tackle in this post. (ISBNs were covered in a previous post.)

BISAC is a list maintained by the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) and is an acronym for Book Industry Standards and Communications. Basically a detailed list of genres, BISACs make it possible for book sellers to place your book on the right shelves in the store and for book buyers to find the books that interest them. Currently, there are 53 major headings, only one of which is Fiction, but under the Fiction heading, there are 65 subheadings, with additional sub-subheadings totalling over 200 individual categories, so you’re more than likely to find the right one for your book. (I find it helpful to identify the BISAC code early on in the writing process, so as I’m writing, I can refer to it…thus keeping me on the right track.)

As the genre is often printed on the back cover in the upper left corner, that’s a good place to put the actual BISAC descriptor (but not the numeric code itself).

BISAC code examples:

  • CGN004210 COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Manga / Yaoi
  • CKB040000 COOKING / Specific Ingredients / Herbs, Spices, Condiments
  • EDU029080 EDUCATION / Teaching Methods & Materials / Language Arts
  • FIC042120 FICTION / Christian / Romance / Suspense
  • FIC009070 FICTION / Fantasy / Dark Fantasy
  • FIC014070 FICTION / Historical / Colonial America & Revolution (new in 2019)
  • FIC022110 FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Cozy / Cats & Dogs
  • FIC027460 FICTION / Romance / Historical / Gilded Age (new in 2019)
    (almost 50 other Romance categories!)
  • FIC028010 FICTION / Science Fiction / Action & Adventure
  • FIC031060 FICTION / Thrillers / Political
  • HOM012000 HOUSE & HOME / Do-It-Yourself / Masonry
  • JNF013070 JUVENILE NONFICTION / Concepts / Size & Shape
  • MAT007020 MATHEMATICS / Differential Equations / Partial
  • SPO043000 SPORTS & RECREATION / Swimming & Diving

As you can see, there are plenty to choose from and more than enough detail to identify your specific book.

ISBN

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Ah! Good ol’ ISBNs. How much do we know about them…how much do we care? Everyone talks about them, but what do we really know of them? Why are they so important? Do we really need them? What do we do with them? And what do all those dashes mean? …Don’t worry, we’ll get to all of that right now.

First off, it’s an acronym for International Standard Book Number (so it isn’t right to talk about an ISBN number, just say ISBN). It has a few cousins, too, the main ones are the ISSN (for serialized publications such as magazines and newspapers) and the ISMN (for musical scores), but our focus is on books. The ISBN is used to identify books…or book-like items—including ebooks and audio books.

As an international standard, the ISBN has a lot of information, and the first part is what ‘country’ we’re in: 978 (and the new 979) is BookLand. (Yes, they really set up a separate country just for us.) The next part is called the Registration Group Element…but we just call it the Language group. (In 978, a 0 or 1 in this position indicates English, 2 French, 3 German, 4 Japan, 5 Russian, 7 Chinese, etc.) The next part is the Registrant Element…we say Publisher. Then follows the Publication Element. The last digit is a checksum just to keep the computers happy.

Hyphens:

The hyphens are important, too, and have certain places to go, but the problem is that two of the elements aren’t fixed in size: the publisher and publication. Together they have to occupy a total of 8 digits (in the main language groups), but it can be 2&6, 3&5, 4&4…down to 7&1. Obviously, the fewer digits used to identify the publisher, the more digits there are available for publications. In the 2 digit publishers, each one can have a million publications…and in the 7 digit publishers, although there is room for ten million publishers, each one can have only ten publications.

Yes, ten publications is the smallest you can go, but why so many? What if you only have one book to share with the world? You’ll still need a few ISBNs: one for the paperback, one for the hardback, one for Kindle ebook, Nook ebook, and don’t forget your audio book. It needs a separate one, too. The ISBN identifies each different type of media, because if the reader wants to have a book in hand, you don’t want a CD to arrive when your book is ordered!

What that means is that when you put your ISBN on the copyright page and the back cover (along with its barcode), you need to make certain the hyphens are in the right places. Forgetting them is either a sign of ignorance or an attempt to obscure the size of your publisher. These days, you have nothing to hide. If you’ve been picked up by one of the Big 5, let the world know by putting your hyphens in the right place…and if you’ve gone the self-publishing route, be proud of that fact and boast to the world by putting your hyphens in the right place—between each element!

Font Choice

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There has been much discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of various fonts since the printing industry began. Researchers have written entire books on the topic, following months and even years of research at various institutes of higher learning. If you ask the experts, they will generally agree…at least that there’s a difference—the details are still a matter of debate.

For a fuller discussion of Typography in detail, consider reading Matthew Butterick’s online book: Practical Typography. If you have the time and inclination, it’s an excellent explanation of how things work. We’re not going to go into that much detail here—rather we’ll be pointing out a few helpful ideas of font choice.

Two Types

We will focus on two different types of fonts: Serif and Sans-serif. There are also Script and Decorative (including Fancy, Stencil and Handwritten), but typically they aren’t used in books. We also aren’t going to spend much time on monospaced fonts. Looking as if they were typed on an old typewriter, they are almost exclusively used to highlight computer coding examples, so if you’re writing a book about that, you probably already know how to format your illustrations.

Serif fonts are amongst the oldest fonts created, based on Roman carvings. The serifs are the extra tails that extend from the ends of each stroke of the letters. The serifs ease the identifying of letters and guide the reader’s eye along the lines of text, and so help make reading easier and more pleasurable. (We don’t want a good story to be ruined by a poor reading experience.)

Sans-Serif fonts don’t have those tails, ending with flat or square lines. Usually used in headings or titles to help them stand out, they keep your reader oriented in your wealth of information—an important objective. You’ll also see plenty of sans-serif fonts used in books aimed for a younger audience…think about those early readers where the kids are still sounding out each letter.

Which to use where

The general suggestion these days is to use a clear serif font for the body of the book. We recommend Century Supra or Equity (both at mbtype.com), Charter (practicaltypography.com/charter.html), or Source Serif Pro (github.com/adobe-fonts/source-serif-pro). For headings and chapter titles, a complementary sans-serif font works well. For that we suggest Advocate (all caps) or Concourse (both at mbtype.com), Fira Sans (bboxtype.com/typefaces/FiraSans), or IBM Plex (www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/ibm-plex). Of course, because the titles of the chapters are usually short, some folks prefer to use a fancy font there, just to attract attention, so if that’s your preference please avoid Papyrus, Office Scripts, and of course Comic Sans.

Whatever you do, don’t use more than a few fonts in any one document…advert posters included! Once you start searching out new and different fonts, the more likely it will be that you catch font-itus.

From First Idea to Printed Book

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It’s well past time to address this topic…after all, we put the graphic below on our Home page, hinting at the process, so we really should explain how it all works. It starts off with an idea—someone somewhere has to have an idea…not even a fully formed idea yet…just a glimmer, but that’s enough to get started. Thinking about the idea is good, but trying to tell the story to someone else is better (writing it down will come later). You don’t even have to tell it to anyone in particular…some of my earliest stories were told at bedtime…to children. We can’t edit a blank page, so having an idea is just the start.

Tell It, then Write It

For non-fiction, this is when you’d hire a Developmental Editor, but for fiction, hold off on that for now. Just work on getting the basic details refined. This is the step where you are allowed to paint yourself into a corner, in fact, encouraged to do so…then, in a panic, retreat and rewrite (or retell) that section to fix it.

Once you have the basic story in mind, it’s time to commit it to paper. If you can find a group of fellow writers, they can help identify some of the less obvious problems you might encounter, and if you’re lucky enough to join a Critique Group, as they read your story—chapter by chapter—you’ll be reading theirs, learning by finding problems in their stories (which you can then avoid!).

Ready for Edit

After a few back and forths (sometimes quite a few) with your mini-audience, you should now have a complete story…on paper—that’s your manuscript. You are now ready for your first edit: the Line Edit. The story is done, but it needs a bit of polishing. At this point the written and spoken versions should be identical…you are just getting the flow smoothed out. Then it’s back to the author to do final clean up, and it’s ready for the second level edit: Copy Edit. This is a more in-depth look at the mechanics, the grammar, the usage…if you have a particular style, here is where it will become obvious.

The author doesn’t sit back and wait whilst the ms is being edited either…now is when the Front and Back Matter should be created—all the stuff that isn’t the story. Finding a good cover artist is important, too. (We can recommend a few…ask us.)

Put it together

After the Copy Edit is done, the formatting and layout steps are done and a temporary cover is slapped on, so Advance Reader Copies can be printed. Marketing should have started already, but now you have something physical to hand out to reviewers. The final edit step is now upon us: Proofreading—actually reading the proof copy of the book. Involving yet another set of editing standards, we are now building an experience for the reader to enjoy.

The last step is to add the final cover and have a release party. Be certain to invite us! We love a good release party.

Front and Back Matter

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Books, whether printed or on a screen, have more to them than just the content. The important part of the book is surrounded by other parts: known as Front Matter and Back Matter. There are a variety of ways to organise both sections, with only minor disagreement amongst publishers, so here’s what they typically are and how they’re placed:

Front Matter:

  • Title page (both full and half): the title of your book
  • Copyright information: legal info, could include credits for pictures or cover art (only one starting on verso side)
  • Table of Contents (aka TOC): listing of chapters and sub-chapters with page numbers
  • Dedication: specific folks mentioned to whom the work is devoted
  • Acknowledgements: recognising folks who helped create the work
  • Introduction: an explanation of why the work was created
  • Forward: often written by another person, explains how the author is connected to the topic
  • Preface: written by the author explaining how the book came to be
  • Prologue (sometimes considered part of the book block): a scene in the story, either long before or extracted from the middle of the story, a teaser

  Back Matter:

  • Epilogue: similar to the prologue but at the end, tying up loose ends in the story
  • Afterword: how the book was created, sometimes written by another person
  • Appendix: tables, diagrams, maps, and other useful non-text info for the reader to consult
  • Bibliography: formal listing of sources gleaned to create this book
  • Colophon: information about printing, paper, ink, binding, type face
  • Glossary: definitions of words or terms used in the book that may not be commonly known
  • Pronunciation guide: how to pronounce new words…especially useful if you have characters with strange names, gives you a chance to steer the reader towards your clever naming method
  • Index: alphabetical list of important words with the page numbers where they are used
  • Notes: explanation of how the author gathered and put together the info in the book
  • References: casual pointers to other works where you found the info you mention in your book
  • About the author: your chance to tell the reader all about yourself, who you are, where you came from, what you have planned for the future
  • Order form or Next Book Announcement: a list of your previous works and how to get them, or an advert for your next book and when it will be released, could include the first chapter as a teaser

Quite a bit there, but not all are needed. Some are more common to Fiction, some to Non-Fiction. If you can’t think of a reason to put any of these in your book, you are welcome to leave them out.

Book Sizes (Trim)

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Recently we covered a bunch of info about Paper Sizes—now we’re going to tackle books themselves. As with paper, the origin of the standards in the US seem to be lost in history, but book manufacturers have established some traditional sizes. If you want your book to fit into bookshelves, either in the store or at someone’s home, you really need to stick to the norms. Of course, if your book hits the international market, you’ll find that a completely different set of book sizes is customary.

Genre Specific

Before you can pick a size for your book, you need consider what’s inside. Children’s books are often a 7×10 format. YA is 5×7. Mass market fiction is a little over 4 by a little under 7 (it has to fit into a pocket). Comic books are 6 5/8 x 10 1/4 (to fit into those plastic sleeves).

Text books or technical manuals (cook books included) use a full 8.5×11 with spiral binding to make room for double columns and lots of illustrations…and it will stay flat when in use (on either the workbench or kitchen counter).

Novels, of multiple sorts, come in a range of sizes, with the width running from 5.5 to 6 and the height going from 8.5 to 9. At the small end, 5.5×8.5 (Digest size), you’re printing two pages per normal Letter size paper. (You could actually print those at home—of course, binding them would be a whole different ball of wax.) The larger end, 6×9 (also known as US Trade), is a rather popular size, so unless you have some specific reason to go with a different size, you may as well stick with this one.

If your book is short, rather than having a thin, floppy book (with not enough space on the spine for your title), try for a trimmed version of Digest: 5.25×8. It’s just a bit smaller, but with less space on the pages, you’ll have more pages, so your book will be thicker—an advantage that gives the reader a sense of worth.

International Market

When you hit the big time, and are being distributed internationally, you might consider other sizes. There aren’t as many choices here, but that’s good news. A bit smaller than Digest is the British Paperback size B (129x198mm or approx. 5 1/8 x 7 3/4). A taller, skinnier book, with larger pages, is the British Paperback Trade size C (135x216mm or 5 3/8 x 8 1/2).

On the other hand, for a longer book, you’ll want much larger pages, so you’d use paper size B5 (176x250mm or almost 7 x 9 1/2). If your book is really short, then use paper size A6 (105×148 or 4 1/8 x 5 5/6) to make it thicker. The other A size book you might look at is A5. It sits between US Trade and Digest, so it’ll feel right in your reader’s hands.

We hope to see you hit the big time soon. Keep at it!

Basic Layout of a Book (cover)

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Most readers are familiar with what a book looks like, but from an author’s point of view, there is much more involved in putting one together. Let’s go over the basic parts:

  • Obviously there is the cover first, made up of the front, back, and spine.
  • Then there’s the inside, but that’s just a bunch of pages, right?

Not quite, but we’ll get to that part in a post about the layout of the inside—we’ll examine just the cover in this post.

Front:

Focusing on the front of the cover, the reader will expect to find a title and possibly a subtitle (especially for non-fiction). Then there’s the author’s name, and of course some wonderful image that will catch the reader’s eye—but when the cover artist lays out the words and pictures, make certain enough room is left somewhere for that wonderful sticker you get when you win the book contest!

Back:

The back cover also has a few items that are expected. The genre is specified, typically in the upper left corner, along with the appropriate BISAC code. The middle has a paragraph or two with enough information for the reader to make the decision to buy the book—here is where you put your hook. You may also have a few blurbs from advance readers or reviewers. The lower left area is where you put your own picture, along with a bit of info about you. (Some readers will buy the book based solely on the author’s credentials.) Publisher info goes just below that. The lower right corner (near the spine) is where the ISBN goes with its bar code.

Spine:

There isn’t much room on the spine, so the only things expected are the title (possibly shortened), the author’s name (usually just the last name), and the publisher’s logo.

Although it’s usually the spine that the reader sees first, it’s the cover that gets the book get picked up, and the back gets the book opened—that’s where you have to convince the reader to buy it.

That pretty much covers the cover. The inside is a whole ’nother matter.

Basic Layout of a Book (inside)

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In a previous post we delved into what is needed for the cover of a book, so now we are going to examine the inside. Besides the brilliant content you’ve created, there is the Front Matter and Back Matter, but that’s just what is there. In this post we are going to consider how it appears.

Running Headers and Footers are at the top and bottom of each page, outside your content. The Header often has the author’s name or book title on one side and the section or chapter name on the other, while the Footer has the page numbers (centered on the page, or at the outer corners—your decision on that), but it’s not a requirement to follow that pattern. The main reason they are there is so when readers are flipping through your book, they know exactly what’s being covered in each section.

Page numbers are important for reader’s to find what they need, but remember they are different for the different sections. The Front Matter has Roman numerals—the main section uses Arabic numerals. Odd numbers are on the right hand side (the recto)—even on the left (the verso). Page 1 is always the first page of content, and because chapters typically start on the right side, the left page just in front of each chapter may be blank…if it is, make certain it is entirely blank.

You want to make it easy for your readers, so pick a good, clean font. No need to be fancy here. Also make certain your line spacing is comfortable, anywhere from 1.15 to 1.25 is good enough for standard fonts. If you have a particularly tall font, it may need more, so just make the leading 5 to 10 points larger than the font size. Make certain your justification is appropriate for your content: non-fiction, fully justified; fiction, left justified. Paragraph indents and spacing also differs depending on the topic: non-fiction, no indent, minor spacing between; fiction, small indent, no spacing between. The space around your text should be considered, too. Set your margins and gutters wide enough. Especially important is avoiding widows and orphans. Both are bad—white space is good.

Obviously the content is up to you, but what you put in front of and behind your creation will be covered in another post.

Paper Sizes

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In anticipation of discussing the various sizes of books (Trim Sizes), we are going to first take a look at how paper sizes differ throughout the world. As is typical of many things, two main standards exist in the English-speaking world: The US and everyone else. We’ll go over both and touch on the advantages and disadvantages of each. The size of a piece of paper is directly related to how easy it is to print and bind books, and that’s what our goal is.

US Paper Sizes

The origins of the sizes used in the US (and a few nearby countries) are lost to history, though there abounds quite a few different explanations, including the length of a vatman’s arms. (The vatman was the person in the papermaking process who collected the pulp onto frames before stacking and pressing, requiring very skilled labour.)

The sizes of papers in the US include Letter (8.5×11), Legal (8.5×14), and Ledger (11×17 or two Letter sizes together), producing at least two trim sizes: 8.5×11 (Letter) and 5.5×8.5 (Half-Letter). Typical use of the larger one is text books or tech manuals, often with a spiral binding, so they will stay flat when in use. The smaller one, also called Digest size, is close to typical paperback size, so it is one of the more popular used for shorter novels.

One of the big criticisms from other countries is that the Aspect Ratio isn’t constant with US paper. (Aspect Ratio is the mathematical comparison of the height to the width.) Letter has an AR of 1.29, Legal is 1.65, and Ledger is 1.55. Half-Letter has the same AR as Ledger because it is half and Ledger is double letter. (That’s just the way the maths works out.)

International Paper Sizes

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO, short for Greek isos meaning equal) has a set standard for paper sizes (ISO 216) based on an idea presented in 1786 by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. He proposed using a constant Aspect Ratio, which mathematically works out to be the square root of 2 (√2=1.414…). The advantage there is that cutting a sheet in half or doubling it gives another with the same AR—very useful for enlarging or reducing prints.

Series A paper starts with A0, a sheet a full metre square, and each succeeding size smaller is exactly half the previous. Corresponding B sheets runs a bit larger, but each one is half way between adjacent A series sheets. The A series of paper is more common, and some manufacturers print books on A5 paper, only slightly wider and less tall than US Digest size (making them a bit stouter). You can often find books printed at the B5 size, only slightly larger than the US Trade paperback size (but again stouter).

That pretty much covers all the main differences between paper sizes. We’ll see how that affects book sizes later.