How To Format A Word Document For Uploading To Amazon: MS Word Styles

My apologies for all the posts today, but I didn't want to include step-by-step tutorials in this blog post so I made three separate posts. This post is a continuation of my series: How To Format A Word Document For Uploading To Amazon.

Let's look at how we can use styles in MS Word to drastically cut down on the amount of time we spend formatting a document. Doing it this way has not only saved me time it has saved me much frustration. For instance, when I publish on Smashwords, I get through the notoriously ravenous Meatgrinder, unscathed, on the first try.

By the way, I'm using MS Word 2007 so all my instructions are for that version of Word.

MS Word Styles 101

All the styles I use build on the Normal style, so the first thing I do is make sure that the Normal style is exactly how I want it.

Modify The Normal Style: Default Settings

Keep in mind that this is just what I do. This isn't the only way of using Word to format a document, but it's what works for me. If something else is working for you, use that. (And please tell me what it is in the comments! I love learning new things.)

If you'd like to step through the following with me but you don't know how to modify a style in MS Word, I've created a step-by-step tutorial: How To Adjust The Paragraph Settings Of A Style In MS Word.

Okay, back? Everyone knows how to change the paragraph settings of a style? Great! Let's do it.

Changing the paragraph settings of the Normal style

The first thing I do is make sure that my Normal style is set to what I call my Default settings. Here they are:

Figure 1: Click to enlarge

In case the image isn't coming through I'll type them in here as well:

Paragraph settings:

Indentation: Left: 0"; Right: 0"
Spacing: Before: 0pt; After: 0 pt
Special: None
Line Spacing: Single

All the other styles we're going to use are built up from the Normal style so it's important we have it just the way we want it.

Creating Our Own Styles

Now comes the fun part! We get to create our own styles based on the Normal style.

If you don't know how to create a style in MS Word that's fine. I've put together a step-by-step tutorial that walks you through this. It has oodles of pictures. You can get to it by clicking here: How To Create A Paragraph Style In MS Word.

myBodyText

This is the style I use for all the text in my manuscript. I base it on the Normal style then adjust these settings (see Figure 2):

Special: First line: By 0.3"
Spacing: After: 6 pt

Figure 2: Click to enlarge

Click OK and you're done!

mySpacer

I use "*  *  *  *" to separate scenes and I like to leave one blank line above it and one blank line after it. But, rather than actually use a blank line I do this with styles. Here's how.

Just like we did for our myBodyText style, create a new style and call it "mySpacer" (or whatever you'll find memorable). For myBodyText we left no space above and only 6pt below each paragraph. Now, though, we want to leave 12pt before the paragraph and 12 pts after. Also, we center the style (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Click to enlarge

Click OK and you've created your second style.

I'm going to pick up the pace now since you're familiar with creating and modifying styles.

myTitle

Create another style, call it myTitle (or whatever you'd like). We're going to use this style to format the title of our book.

(Tip: Make sure you're basing these styles on your Normal style, the one we modified at the beginning of this tutorial.)

Here are the changes I make:

a. Increase the font size two points
I use Times New Roman 12 point for my Normal style so I'll increase the font size here to 14 pt. You may want your title to be even larger, and that's fine. Experiment. You might want to italicize your title, or make it bold. Play around, find out what looks good to you.

b. Center the style.

myCenter

You might wonder why you couldn't just center your text without using a style. I've found that when I do as much formatting as possible through my custom styles, things go more smoothly.

This one is easy, just create a new style, call it whatever you want--I use "myCenter"--and make sure that you center align the text.

myHeader

This is the last one! This will help your document headers come out the way you intend.

Creating this style is falling-off-a-log easy because you've just done it for myCenter. You might wonder why bother to create a new style for myHeader when it's exactly the same as myCenter. Here's why: You might want to do something unique to your header that you don't want communicated to everything you've centered.

For instance, let's say you want your header in bold or you want to decrease the font size. If you were using myCenter for this then those changes would be communicated to every paragraph you'd used that style for. And that probably wouldn't be something you'd want.

It may seem odd at first, but I try to create a new style for every function, ever kind of thing I want to do. You may end up with two or three more styles but, over the long run, I've found it sames me a lot of work.

How To Format A Header For Your Manuscript in MS Word

Oh, one more thing!

You all probably know how to do this already but, just in case you don't, I also want to talk about how to format your headers so that you have that nice name-on-one-side-of-the-page, title-on-the-other look (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: Click to enlarge

But that's another tutorial and this post is long enough, so I'll direct you here: How To Format A Manuscript Header Using MS Word: Name On One Side, Title On The Other.

I hope you've gotten something out of this decidedly 'unwriterly' tutorial. Tomorrow when I continue this series on how to format an MS Word document and upload it to Amazon I'll pull everything together and show you my 'master template'.

Other articles you might like:

- How To Format A Word Document For Uploading To Amazon
- The Starburst Method: Discovering Your Characters
- The Starburst Method: What It Is And What It Can Do

Photo credit: "Here comes the sun..." by chantrybee under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

How To Format A Manuscript Header Using MS Word: Name On One Side, Title On The Other

How To Format A Manuscript Header Using MS Word

I used MS Word 2007 for this tutorial.

Just in case this is clear as mud, here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Click to enlarge

We want the author's name on the left side and the title of the book on the right.

Formatting Your Manuscript Header In MS Word 2007

1. Make the headers different for odd and even pages

a. Click the "Insert" tab on the ribbon and then click "Header" (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Click to Enlarge

b. Click "Edit Header" at the bottom of the menu (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

c. Select "Different First Page" and "Different Odd & Even Pages" (see Figure 3).

Figure 3

Don't close the header yet!

2. Type in the headers for the odd and even pages

a. On the header for page 2 type the authors name, last name first and first name last. For example:

Doe, Jane

If there is more than one author:

Doe, Jane; Smith, Michael

b. On page 3 type the title of the book.

c. Select "Close Header and Footer"

That's it!

Update (Jan 6, 2013): 
I've run into a glitch. I've found that MS Word can be cantankerous when it comes to Headers. Sometimes I'll have the "Show different first page" option checked, delete the header on the first page, but instead of it only being removed from the first page it'll also be deleted from the rest of the odd pages.

Here's a work around. Make your first page--your title page--a different section by inserting a "different page" section break. Get into the header (if you're in Print Layout just double-click in the header) and make sure that, for both the odd and even pages, "Link to Previous" is NOT selected.

That should fix it.

Other articles you might be interested in:

- How To Adjust The Paragraph Settings Of A Style In MS Word
- How To Create A Paragraph Style In MS Word
- How To Modify A MS Word Paragraph Style

How To Adjust The Paragraph Settings Of A Style In MS Word

How To Adjust The Paragraph Settings Of A Style

All information in this tutorial applies to MS Word 2007.

a. Bring up the window named Modify Style. (I talk about how to do this here: How To Modify A MS Word Paragraph Style.)

b. There is a button named "Format" in the lower left corner of the Modify Style dialog box (see Figure 1). Press the button.

Figure 1: Click to enlarge

c. From the dropdown list select "Paragraph" (see Figure 2)

Figure 2: Click to enlarge

d. You should now see the Paragraph window (see Figure 3). 

Figure 3: Click to enlarge

That's it!

Other articles you might like:
- How To Create A Paragraph Style In MS Word
- How To Modify A MS Word Paragraph Style

How To Create A Paragraph Style In MS Word

How To Create A Paragraph Style In MS Word

a. On 'the ribbon' you'll see an area marked "Styles", click on the arrow in the lower right corner (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Click to enlarge

b. This will bring up the Styles window (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Click to enlarge

c. On the bottom right of the Styles Window there is a button with what looks like a double "A" on it (see Figure 3). That is the New Style button. Click it.

Figure 3: Click to enlarge

d. This will bring up the window: Create New Style from Formatting (see Figure 4). That's it!

Figure 4: Click to enlarge

Other articles you might like:

- How To Modify A MS Word Paragraph Style

How To Modify A MS Word Paragraph Style

Two Ways To Modify A Paragraph Style

This information pertains to MS Word 2007.

Modifying an existing paragraph style is easy. There are two ways you can so this.

1. First way to modify a paragraph style:

a. Go to the "Home" tab on the ribbon, find the "Styles" area.

b. Click the arrow in the lower right-hand corner. This will bring up the Styles Window (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Click to enlarge

c. Hover the mouse pointer over the style you wish to modify. A down-facing arrow will appear on the far right (See Figure 2).

Figure 2: Click to enlarge

d. Click the down-facing arrow and select "Modify" (See Figure 3).

Figure 3: Click to enlarge

That's it!

2. Second way to modify a paragraph style:

a. Go to the "Home" tab on the ribbon, find the "Styles" area.

b. Hover your mouse over the style you wish to modify and right click on it.

c. A menu will appear. Select "Modify".

That's it!

Photo credit: "Tagging: Maldives Style" by nattu under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.