Preparing Your Manuscript for Publication – Part 2

By Tracy R. Atkins

In Part 1, we discussed how to transfer your content and insert more chapters and chapter headings when using a template from Book Design Templates to prepare your manuscript for publication.

In Part 2, we will cover how to format:

• Drop Caps (Print Templates Only)
• Section Breaks
• Headers and Footers (Print Templates Only)

Drop Caps (Print Templates Only)

Drop caps are used on the first paragraph of select template designs. Creating a drop cap is a three step process that is easy to complete.

1. Highlight the first character of the chapter’s opening paragraph.

   

2. Select Drop Cap from the Insert tab, Text section, and choose Dropped.

   

Tip: Optionally, select Drop Cap Properties/options to adjust the size of the drop cap to the number of lines that you wish the drop cap to occupy.

Tip: Raised Caps are an option on some templates. To create a raised cap, highlight the first character of the paragraph and select the raised cap style.

Section Breaks

Section Breaks are used after the last paragraph of a chapter. Inserting a section break assures that the next chapter or front matter page starts in the correct place. Most section breaks will be for “odd” , or verso pages. Chapters should always start on an odd-page, so be sure that every chapter ends in a Section Break (Odd Page).

1. End the last paragraph of chapter or page text with an“ENTER” or pilcrow.

   

2. Select the Breaks dropdown from the Page Layout tab, Page Set- up section.
    
   

3. Select Odd Page to insert an Odd Page Section Break. If you require a next page section break, choose it from the menu.

   

Tip: Be sure that you only have a single Section Break (Odd page), and not two in a row, as this can throw off page numbering in your final file.

The Sample chapters in the template include a Section Break.

Headers and Footers (Print Templates Only)

Running heads and page numbers are included in your template and are designed to automatically paginate correctly in each chapter without author intervention.

In most templates, the front-matter and first page of the chapter will omit the running head. The book title and author will only appear on subsequent chapter pages, per industry standards.

You must modify the running heads to include both the author’s name and book title.

All running heads are linked throughout the book. By changing the author’s name and book title on the first chapter’s running heads, the change will propagate throughout the entire template automatically, saving you time and effort.

Note: eBook templates do not utilize running heads or page numbers. If present, they will be removed during eBook conversion automatically.

1. Navigate to the second page of the first chapter of your book.
    
   

2. Double click the header area, or choose Header / Edit Header from the Insert tab to edit the header.

   
   

3. Change the header by over-typing the text already in place.
    
   

4. When finished, click “Close Header and Footer” on the title bar.
    
   

Step-by-step Video

Check out our Complete Book Formatting How-To Guide for Word Templates video to see how a template is populated:

Got questions? Please leave them in the comments below.

Next time, we’ll explain how to format the table of contents, chapter name headers, and page numbers for print books, and how to format chapters to be continguous.
 
Photo: BigStockPhoto