How To Format An Ebook In Microsoft Word – Video Tutorial

Format An Ebook Video

Before self-publishing, you need to know how to format an ebook in a Microsoft Word document.

It has probably taken months if not longer, to write your book’s manuscript.

Due to this, your Word file is almost certainly full of erroneous styles, formatting errors, and different text or font formats.

It is vital to remove these inconsistencies from your ebook before publishing.

Good ebook formatting

You want readers to enjoy your story.

You will not distract them with irregular fonts, text sizes, and paragraph formats.

Only a few basic steps are required for formatting a Word document before publishing it on Kindle Direct Publishing.

Once you do it, your Word file will also be suitable for most other publishing platforms.

The video below gives a step-by-step guide on how to format an ebook in Microsoft Word.

However, before watching the video, it is worth pointing out a few of the most important steps.

 

Steps to format an ebook in Microsoft Word

1. Back up your manuscript

Before starting, ALWAYS make a backup copy of your manuscript and rename your new working copy.

If anything goes wrong, you can then go back to your original version.

2. Save in .docx

The best Word file format for publishing is .docx.

If your manuscript is in the old .doc format, do a ‘save as’ and create a new copy using the .docx file format.

3. Don’t use too many styles

When using Word Styles, keep them to an absolute minimum.

Apart from the book title and credits page, which may use a few styles for aesthetics, the body of the book should only use three styles: Normal for text, Heading 1 for chapter headings, and perhaps Centred for star breaks.

4. Use first-line indents

Ebook text needs to flow without line spaces between paragraphs.

Because of this, you should use a first-line indent for paragraphs to clearly define each paragraph.

5. Check the result

Once your formatting is completed, check your document using Calibre to see how your ebook will look in .mobi and .epub formats.

 

Watch the video

Format an ebook video

 

Related Reading: How To Convert A Document From Word To Epub Or Mobi

2 thoughts on “How To Format An Ebook In Microsoft Word – Video Tutorial”

  1. I think it’s fundamentally wrong to say that everyone’s manuscript will be full of incorrect formatting. None of mine have ever had different font sizes, different fonts, or different paragraph styles and I won’t be the only one.

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