How to Format a Book: Formatting Snags and How to Fix Them

Self-publication is getting more popular every year. It’s easy to do, and it gives authors complete control over their work and when it gets published. Book formatting isn’t rocket science, but if you’re new to it, you’ll probably hit some frustrating roadblocks that eat up your time and delay your book launch.

Here are some of the most common problems you’ll run into when learning how to format a book and how to actually fix them.

Start Formatting with a Clean Slate

If you’ve made a mess of your formatting or need to start over completely, select all your text and use Paste > Special > Paste Unformatted Text. This strips out all the formatting gremlins.

Now your text appears in the document without all those hidden formatting issues, and you can build it back up properly. I’ve learned this the hard way – it’s much easier to start clean than to hunt down mysterious formatting problems that seem to come from nowhere.

Weird Spacing

Sometimes Word decides it knows better than you and insists on double-spacing when you just want single spacing. When you’re trying to finalize your book, this kind of thing makes you want to throw your computer out the window. Here’s a quick fix: press SHIFT+ENTER instead of just hitting Enter. This gives you a line break without all the extra spacing drama.

New Pages

Don’t just mash the Enter key until you reach the bottom of a page. That’s amateur hour. Professional formatting uses actual Page Breaks to start new pages. Most publishing platforms need these to tell the difference between regular page breaks and new chapters.

The shortcut is CTRL+ENTER. Learn shortcuts like this early on and you’ll save yourself hours of tedious work later.

Compatibility Problems

Save your document in the newest format available – usually .docx or .doc. Check your publisher’s guidelines to see which formats they accept. Sometimes you’ll need to convert your file before uploading.

Compatibility issues pop up more often than you’d think. Use the Save As function in your word processor or find a reliable converter that doesn’t mess up your formatting. When that fails, you might have to redo the formatting from scratch. Yes, it’s as painful as it sounds.

Sometimes documents just refuse to open in certain programs. LibreOffice and OpenOffice can usually handle stubborn files that other programs can’t read, plus they let you save directly to PDF. This tends to be more of an issue if you’re switching between Microsoft Word and other programs.

Mac to Windows file transfers can also create headaches that require reformatting work.

Unreadable Fonts

Font problems have a nasty habit of showing up at the worst possible moment – like when you’re looking at your proof copy for the first time. Most font issues happen because you picked a font that the conversion software can’t handle properly during printing or e-book conversion.

When this happens, just change your font. Don’t try to fight it. Your publisher’s guidelines should list which fonts work reliably and which ones cause problems for e-books or print books. Stick to the safe choices and save yourself the headache.