How to write a book in Word
Posted by: Ashfaq Ahmad
What should be the content for the book?
If you write, then this article is for you. A subject can be anything from fiction to non-fiction. Non-fiction is based on your experience and knowledge, in which you don’t have to think too much, whereas, in fiction, one has to work hard. For that, first you should have a deep understanding of psychology for characterization and expression and secondly, before writing a story, the entire concept should be in your mind because, in the end, there should be many ends which are to be tied to the beginning. For example, when writing a suspense thriller or a Sherlock Holmes typescript, you have to keep in mind, what evidence do you have to keep leaving from the front page so that the culprit can be caught in the end?
Well, whatever you write, there are three ways to do it. Either you write directly on a Desktop/Laptop or write with a pen on paper and later on take the content to the phone with the help of Voice Typing and then take it to Desktop/Laptop with the help of Google Keep or Google Docs or write directly using Voice Typing on Phone or Desktop/Laptop. It’s easier to write in English for voice typing, but if you are writing in Hindi you will have to resort to Google Indic.
Where did religion come from and how logical from the point of view of science?
It should be noted here that in Voice Typing, only words will be printed and all symbols like comma, punctuation etc. will have to be applied by yourselves. So open a word file and move the content in smaller portions and while correcting the sentences, keep correcting the chapter paragraph breaks. Keep the number of breaks in the paragraph to a minimum, mostly use symbols like (, –…) for the sentence break. Be aware that these symbols take place immediately after the word and there is no space between them. Single space is added later.
How to do proofreading and editing
When all the content has been uploaded in the word file and given all the necessary symbols, Chapter/Paragraph breaks then, from the page size view section, zoom in up to 200–350% so that you can see everything in enlarged view and then read it back, remove any errors that may occur.
Although doing this with one’s own writing work is a tough task, many writers who go to self-publishing platform and either they are not in a position to spend money or they don’t want to do it and they have to upload a Ready to Print file only, therefore these things should be done by themselves.
what possibilities are there in the universe outside our planet
For proofreading and editing, it is better to turn on the marker which you will find in the “Home” tab. This will continually let you know, how many spaces you have provided or how many lines you have given in the paragraph break. After doing this, you can select the entire content and use the ruler to select the first line of each paragraph to be started with the tab space and it can be adjusted up to a quarter-inch, as seen in this article. According to the current format, you can finish the tab space manually from the first paragraph of each chapter and if desired, you can provide space between every two paragraphs like in this article, for which provide a spacing of 8pt in “Layout “ section or don’t do it if there is too much of content, it will reduce the pages a little. Make the font size 9 or 10.
How to design the interior
Once you are satisfied that your script is complete, then focus on the interior. From the “Layout” section, go to the Page Margin and click on Custom. The Page Setup box with three sections will open. Here, in the Margins where you see “Normal”, click there and create a mirror image. There you can select between the Margins 0.5–6” for Top, 0.7–8” for Bottom and while keeping an Outer margin of 0.5” an Insider margin can be kept between 0.8–1”. It depends on you.
Next, in the Paper part, set the page size from 5 × 7, 5.5 × 8.5, 6 × 9 whatever you want to keep. From the Layout, click on different Odd-Even, keep the section Start on “New Page”, keep the Header Footer margin to 0.3–4” × 0.5–6” and click on OK, so your file will be converted in the same proportion.
Now notice that on the first page, which is an “Odd” one, there will be the name of the Book and the Writer in Headline, the second is the “Even” page which is there for title verses as well as, Book / Author’s name, Copyright, ISBN, name of the Publisher/Printer etc. You can write a dedication on the third Odd page, leave the fourth-page blank. On the Fifth-Sixth page, write about the book in the “About” section. The seventh page contains the Table of Contents (if any) and Eighth should be kept empty.
If you get into writing articles then take more pages, but keep in mind that the beginning should be from the Odds and the end is either Even or it should be left blank. For this, you will hit Control plus Enter on the back of every next page. Now move the cursor to the previous page of Ninth or Eleventh page from where the main content begins, go to the “Layout” section, click on Page break and take the next page. This starts your “Section Two”. Convert all the main chapters of the book to sections using the same method.
If God is there then how can it be from the point of view of science
Now put on the Page Numbers and Header Footer. For this, go to Page Number from the “Insert” section and select the numbers in the format you like. You have to do this on both Odd and the Even pages and also note that for each of your section, numbers will be different. For this, go to the first page of every next section and select the number by double-clicking, go back to the Page Number format and click on the “Continue from the previous section”.
Similarly, for Header Footers, you have to pay attention that the header footers of Odd and Even will be different. You can add writer’s name on the Odd and insert the name of the book on the Even and if the book is with many different chapters, then you can write the name of the book on Odd and the particular chapter on Even. To give a different header or footer for each different chapter, go to the first page of that particular new section and by selecting the Header / Footer you can unselect the “Continue from the previous section” tab from the design section. Then remove that Header and insert a new Header. Repeat this process in all sections. Now for removing the Page Numbers or Headers from the unwanted places, go to the “Shapes” of the Insert section, take a rectangular box to cover that point and convert the box border to white. The things that you don’t want will be hidden.
What to do for the Book Cover Design
Lastly, you have to make a cover which, you can make either on Corel or Photoshop but if you don’t know how to do it, go to a self-publishing website, create an account and use their cover creator. While making the cover here, be sure to pay attention to the book size and number of pages because the “Gutter Margin” is determined by this. Then download the cover.
Keep in mind that if you are self-publishing, then make sure to obtain an ISBN and Copyright and for putting in the ISBN Barcode behind the Cover, you can take help of Corel or “Excel”. You can find related videos on YouTube. This way, when your book completes you can upload it on Createspace, Notion or Pothi in Print on Demand mode and you can also take their help for marketing by spending a little.
Originally published at WordSmith on June 29, 2019.
