Creating a book with images, text, diagrams and
complex elements can be a nightmare when self publishing on POD for the first
time. Book formatting picture books such as art books or science books seems to
be an art in itself. Having gone through the process myself, have learned a few
things to make text and images do what I want when converting onto PDF, fine tuning
the look of the book or uploading onto POD platforms such as Createspace.
Why Avoid Floating Images
When initially faced with the task of formatting
books with pictures, floating images within text seemed to be the answer. However, unless the
images are placed inline with paragraphs and do not affect subsequent elements,
will tend to slip around or misbehave when converting the file. The larger the book,
the more of a nightmare the task became.
This is because re-positioning the images would have a
knock-on effect upon the formatting on the following pages. Like a domino
effect, a slight adjustment could mess everything else up. The answer to this,
I found was to ‘anchor’ the images, graphics and textboxes within tables.
How to Use Tables in Books
Becoming a master of using tables is the key to
formatting a book when self-publishing. Within Word, you can insert a table with cells for the purpose of inserting images and text, ‘isolating’ these element from the rest of the page. There are
many ways tables can be used for page formatting, such as the following:
 |
| Using Tables to Format Books |
Creating a contents page.
Placing images alongside text.
Inserting captions to images.
Formatting columns.
Creating headers.
Formatting graphs
Creating diagrams
And more.
The image shows how tables can be used in various
ways. Click on ‘table properties’ after highlighting a table (see image 1) and
various options become available. ‘Borders and shading’ can be used to tailor the
look of the table, such as outlines, or make them invisible (see image 2). The table’s
area can be shaded in for colourful blocks of colour within a book (image 3). This
can make a book look more attractive.
You can utilise tables in book formatting in the
following ways:
A table with 2 or 3 cells can be inserted into a page
if a piece of text is to exhibit columns. Each column can be spaced evenly or tailored
to suit.
A table within a table can be inserted if wishing to
insert a piece of text alongside an image and then ‘floated’ within a larger
table. This anchors all elements within one frame without affecting elements
outside of the larger table.
Alternatively, a 2-cell table can be inserted within a
larger table if the caption needs to be a different colour to the rest of the
text.
The outlines of each table can be made invisible by
clicking ‘table properties’ and selecting ‘borders and shading.’ Select ‘none’
for outlines. This will rid of all outlines.
The background to a text area can be made any colour,
by ‘filling in’ the colour of the table. This can be done by clicking ‘table
properties’ and then clicking on ‘borders and shading.’ Click ‘shading’ and
select desired colour.
The table itself can ‘float’ within another table.
See screenshot of how I used tables to format one of my
books which contained complex elements by the use of tables.
 |
| Tips on Book Formatting |
Floating Text and Anchoring Text
Avoid floating text without the use of tables unless the
page elements are very simple, as such formatting can be quite unstable within
a book. Floating within a larger table is OK, as all elements are confined
within the larger table.
Using tables for book formatting makes the task more
manageable. An image, piece of text, captions, graphics and diagrams can be
inserted within cells of a table without fear the rest of the book will get
messed up and misbehave when converting the book into a PDF, fine tuning the look
of the book or uploading. Incidentally, when uploading a book file onto Createspace,
discovered that the old Word format (1997 – 2003) seemed to behave more than the
more current version. For this reason, I always upload my book file in this format
for POD platforms.
More Articles on how to Format Picture Books
No comments:
Post a Comment