How to Set Styles in Microsoft Word to Publish Ebooks

How to Set Stylesin Microsoft Wordto Publish Ebooks

Simple stylesFor a basic ebook,

you only really need three styles:� Normal body text

� Normal indented body text� Chapter heading

Change the style sheetMicrosoft Word comes witha standard style sheet whichneeds modifying to publish

good looking ebooks

The body text settingsI’m going to set body text styles:

Normal:12pt Georgia, Justified,

1.5 line spacingNormal indent:Same as above,

but indented by 0.2ins

The heading settingI’m going to set one style of

chapter heading:Heading 1:

18pt Georgia bold, blue, centered0pt spacing before heading36pt spacing after heading

Modify Normal styleFirst, I’m going to modify the existing

preset Normal stylein Microsoft Word

Set a new stylein Microsoft Word

Having modified the Normal style,I’m now going to set a new style

for indented paragraphs.Setting a new style is slightly different

from modifying a style.

Modify Heading 1 style forchapter headings

I’m going back to modifying a style.This time, I’m changing

the settings for Word’s presetHeading 1 style to use forchapter headings in ebooks

The look of the bookHere’s an example of how the book

will look in Word.The chapter heading (Heading 1)

is followed by an opening paragraph(Normal) which is flush with theleft-hand margin while all other

paragraphs are indented.

The ebook won’t look exactly like this becausean ebook is reflowable, so it will change

depending on the device used.Readers can also change fonts and line spacing

on their devices, but these styleswill give you a solid foundation.

This short guide is part of a post on9 Ways to Publish an Ebook

at rogerpacker.comYou can also read more about

How To Choose Typography for Ebooksat rogerpacker.com