Fonts and layouts for your book

• Page setup: the basics
• Choose your trim size and margins
• Type size, line spacing and paragraphs
• Choose your fonts
• Use your own fonts
• Chapter openings: drop caps and lead-ins
• Headers and page numbers

Page setup: the basics

Everything about how your book looks on the page—its size, margins, fonts, how chapters open—lives in one place: the page setup. This page shows you around it. The pages after this one go through each part in turn.

Open it

Open a book and choose Page setup from the Book menu. (Only the book's owner sees this; collaborators see the book as it's set.)

Screenshot: the Page setup window on its Layout tab, with the "As it prints" preview down the right-hand side.

Two tabs

• Layout is the shape of the page: trim size, margins, the size of the type and the spacing of the lines, where chapter titles sit, headers and page numbers, and a few typographic switches.
• Fonts is the type itself: which fonts set the text, the titles and the front and back matter; colors; how a chapter's first paragraph opens; and any fonts you've uploaded.

See it as it prints

On the right of the Layout tab, As it prints shows a real page from your book, set with what's in the form right now. Switch between Chapter and Front & back matter to see either kind. It catches up a moment after you stop typing, so you can try a number, look, and try another.

Under the picture, Write also does the arithmetic for you: the size of the Text block, the Lines per page, and the Estimated pages for the whole book. It also checks the setup against KDP's print requirements and says Clears KDP's print requirements, or what to fix if it doesn't.

Save, or don't

Nothing changes until you click Save setup. Cancel leaves everything as it was, so it's safe to experiment.

A setup can belong to more than one book

A page setup has a name—Trade paperback 5.25 × 8, say—and any number of books can use it. That's how a series stays consistent: change the setup once and every book in the series follows. The line at the bottom of the window tells you before you save when other books will change too.

To give one book something different, or to make a separate setup for a hardcover or large-print edition, choose + New setup from this form… from the Setup list at the top. See A page setup for each edition.

The ebook

An ebook reflows to fit each reader's screen, so trim size, margins and page numbers don't apply to it. Your fonts (if you choose to include them), chapter openings, title styles and decorations do.

Choose your trim size and margins

The trim size is how big your printed book is; the margins are the white space around the words. This page helps you pick both. You'll find them on the Layout tab of Page setup (in the Book menu).

Screenshot: the Trim size and Margins cards on the Layout tab, with the Gutter set to Auto.

Trim size

Choose from Preset, or pick Custom and type the Width and Height in inches.

• 5 × 8, 5.25 × 8 and 5.5 × 8.5 are the usual sizes for a novel. 5.25 × 8 is a good place to start if you're unsure.
• 6 × 9 suits a long book, or one with lots of pictures.
• The larger sizes are for nonfiction, workbooks and illustrated books.

Use the size you'll order from your printer—KDP and IngramSpark both list the sizes they offer. Changing the trim size changes how many words fit on a page, so the page count will change too; the Estimated pages figure on the right keeps up as you go.

Margins

• Top — from the top of the page to the first line of text. The header (your name or the book's title) sits in this space, so give it room: ¾ inch is comfortable.
• Bottom — from the last line to the foot of the page, where the page number sits.
• Inside — the edge at the spine.
• Outside — the open edge, where readers' thumbs go. KDP asks for at least ¼ inch (⅜ inch with bleed); ½ inch looks like a proper book.

The gutter

A thick book curves into its spine, and the words near the fold get hard to read. The gutter is extra room added to the inside margin to keep them clear.

Leave Auto ticked and Write works it out from how long the book actually is—⅛ inch up to 150 pages, more as the book grows—and sets the PDF to match. Untick it only if your printer asks for a particular gutter.

Bleed

Bleed is a little extra paper past the edge of the page that the printer trims away, so a picture or background running to the edge never leaves a white sliver. ⅛ inch is what KDP and IngramSpark ask for. Leave it on even if nothing in your book runs to the edge yet; your margins are measured from the trimmed page, not the bleed, so it doesn't change how the book looks.

When you upload to KDP, choose Bleed (PDF only) to match. More on that in Publish a print PDF.

When something isn't right

Under the preview on the right, Write checks the setup against KDP's print requirements as you type. When everything's fine it says Clears KDP's print requirements; when something isn't—a margin too narrow for the page count, say—it says what, and the note goes away once you fix the number it names.

Type size, line spacing and paragraphs

How big the type is and how far apart the lines are decide, more than anything else, how comfortable your book is to read—and how many pages it runs to. This page covers those, and the few switches that shape a paragraph. They're on the Layout tab of Page setup (in the Book menu), in the Text and Typography cards.

Screenshot: the Text card (Size, Line height, Indent, Opener drop) and the Typography card's four switches.

Text

• Size — the type size, in points. 10½ to 12 is the range for a novel. Fonts differ, so judge by the As it prints preview rather than the number: 11 points in one font can look like 12 in another. Bigger type reads more easily and adds pages.
• Line height — the distance from one line to the next (typesetters call it leading). About 1.3 times the type size is a good start: 14 on 11-point type, 15 on 11½. More feels airier and runs longer; less is denser.
• Indent — how far the first line of a paragraph steps in. ¼ inch is usual.
• Opener drop — how many lines of space a chapter's first page leaves above the title, so the chapter starts partway down the page, as books do. Six to ten is typical; zero starts at the top.

Every line in the book sits on the same grid, set by the line height, so lines line up across facing pages and through the paper. That's also why the Lines per page figure on the right changes as you adjust it.

Typography

• Indent the first paragraph — most books start a chapter's first paragraph flush against the margin, without an indent. It's a convention, not a rule; tick this if you'd like the indent everywhere.
• Widow and orphan control — stops a paragraph leaving a single line stranded at the top or bottom of a page. It's off by default, which keeps every page the same number of lines; turn it on if stray lines bother you more than the occasional short page.
• Justify — straight edges on both sides, as in nearly every printed novel. Off leaves the right edge ragged.
• Hyphenate — lets words break at the ends of lines. Justified text needs it, or the gaps between words grow uneven. Leave it on with Justify.

Front and back matter

The Front and back matter card, a little further down, sets how those sections look:

• Paragraphs — Spaced (a blank line between paragraphs, usual for an about-the-author page or a foreword) or Indented, like the chapters.
• Headings — Title Case or CAPITALS, whichever way you typed them.

The size and font of the front and back matter are on the Fonts tab; see Choose your fonts.

Choose your fonts

Fonts give a book its voice before anyone reads a word. This page explains how Write thinks about them—three main faces, with everything else following one of them—and how to change them. It's all on the Fonts tab of Page setup (in the Book menu).

The quickest way: pick a look

At the top of the Fonts tab, Looks are whole settings made for a kind of book—Classic, Epic Fantasy, Space Opera, Thriller, Contemporary Romance, Literary and more. Each one sets the fonts, the title style and the chapter opening together, in one click. Try a few and watch the preview.

A look is a starting point, not a cage. Change anything afterward and the setup becomes your own; the card above says when you've moved away from the look you picked.

Screenshot: the Looks row, with one look selected and its name highlighted.

The three main faces

Under Faces:

• Body — the font your story is set in. A book serif reads best over a whole novel: Pagella (Write's stand-in for Palatino), Bonum, Alegreya, EB Garamond, Crimson Pro, Literata.
• Headers and titles — chapter and part titles. This is where a display font can show off: Cinzel for an epic, Orbitron for space opera, Playfair Display for a romance.
• Front and back matter — the dedication, copyright page, about the author and the rest. Often the same as the body; a clean sans gives those pages a voice of their own.

Screenshot: the Faces section of the Fonts tab, showing the Body, Headers and titles, and Front and back matter font lists, each with its font name shown in that font.

There's also Alternate body, a second face for words you've marked in the text—a sign, a letter, a line in someone else's hand. (You mark them with the Aa button that appears when you select text.)

Title style sets chapter titles in regular, italic, bold or bold italic, and Matter size lets the front and back matter be a point larger or smaller than the body, which can help when that face is a sans.

The fonts are grouped in each list—serif, sans, display and monospace, then any you've uploaded—and each list shows its font underneath, so you can see it before you choose.

The smaller pieces

Below the main faces, a handful of pieces can have a font of their own: the Book title on the title page, the Title page details (by-line, series line, publisher), the Chapter sub-headers (the rows under a chapter title, like a date or a place), and the Headers and footers. Each one follows one of the main faces unless you choose otherwise, so changing the main face changes them too.

Colors

Under Colours, the chapter titles, the chapter sub-headers and the initial capital can each have a color. Leave a color blank and it's the page's own ink—black on the printed page. In an ebook, a reader's night mode may override colors so the text stays readable.

Familiar names

If you know a font by another name—Palatino, Garamond, Times, Georgia—Write maps it to the nearest font it carries. Every font that comes with Write is licensed for print and for ebooks, so you can use any of them freely.

To use a font of your own, see Use your own fonts.

Use your own fonts

Write comes with a good range of fonts, but if you've bought a font for your series—or your cover designer used one you'd like inside the book too—you can upload it and use it like any other. This page covers uploading, and the one thing worth knowing about licenses.

Upload a font

1. Open a book and choose Page setup from the Book menu, then the Fonts tab.
2. Scroll to Your fonts and click Upload font files….
3. Choose the font files. Write reads .ttf, .otf and .woff files. You can choose several at once.

A font usually comes as several files—regular, italic, bold, bold italic—and it's worth uploading all of them. Write reads each file to see which family and style it is, so you don't need to name anything. If you leave one out (say, there's no bold italic), the nearest style stands in, and the list says so.

Screenshot: the Your fonts card, showing an uploaded family with its styles listed.

Once it's uploaded, your font appears under Your fonts at the bottom of every font list on the Fonts tab, ready to choose for the body, the titles, or any of the smaller pieces.

Who can see it

Fonts you upload are yours alone. They show in your own page setups and set the books you own. A collaborator working in your book sees it in your fonts while they write, but can't use your font in books of their own.

Replacing or removing a font

Upload the same style again to replace it—the new file takes over. To remove a whole family, use the remove option beside it under Your fonts. If a setup was using it, choose another font for that setup afterward, so you know exactly what your book will be set in.

Licenses, and the ebook

The print PDF always carries the fonts you choose; that's how printing works, and most font licenses allow it.

An ebook is different. Putting a font inside an ebook file means handing a copy of it to every reader, and many font licenses—especially ones bought for desktop use—don't allow that. So by default your ebook uses the reader's own fonts, as most ebooks do.

If you're sure your license covers it (some fonts are sold with an "ebook" or "app" license; free fonts under the SIL Open Font License are fine), tick Embed fonts in the EPUB in the Ebooks card on the Fonts tab. The fonts that come with Write may be embedded freely either way.

A font Write already has

If you upload a font that Write already carries—Cinzel, say—Write tells you it's already there; choose it from the list instead.

Chapter openings: drop caps and lead-ins

The first page of a chapter is where a book shows a little ceremony: the chapter starts partway down the page, the title sits just so, and the first paragraph often opens with a large capital letter and a few words in small capitals. This page covers those touches.

Screenshot: the "As it prints" preview of a chapter's first page, with a three-line dropped capital and the first words in small caps.

The initial and the lead-in

On the Fonts tab of Page setup (in the Book menu), the Chapter opening card sets how a chapter's first paragraph begins.

• Initial — the first letter of the chapter:
  • None — an ordinary first letter.
  • Dropped — a large capital set down into the first few lines of the paragraph, the text wrapping around it.
  • Raised — a large capital standing on the first line and rising above it.
• Lines — how many lines the initial spans. Three is the classic.
• Initial font — a font for the big letter alone. A display face can carry a single large letter beautifully where the body font can't; leave it on the body font for something quieter.
• Lead-in — the first few words in Small caps or Capitals, easing the reader from the big letter into the text.
• Words — how many words the lead-in runs to. Three or four is usual. If you'd like it to end at a natural place, a line break in the text ends it early.
• Lead-in font — a font for the lead-in alone. Small caps look best in a font that has real ones; where it doesn't, Write makes them from capitals.
• Also after every scene break — opens the first paragraph after each scene break the same way.

Screenshot: the Chapter opening card on the Fonts tab of Page setup, showing Initial, Lines, Initial font, Lead-in, Words, Lead-in font and the Also after every scene break box.

The initial can also have its own color, under Colours on the same tab.

Where the chapter starts on the page

On the Layout tab:

• Opener drop (in the Text card) — how many lines of space sit above the chapter title, so the chapter begins partway down the page. Six to ten is typical.
• Chapters open on a right-hand page (in the Headers and footers card) — the way most novels do it, with a blank left-hand page added when needed. Untick it to let chapters start on whichever page comes next, which saves paper.

The title itself

Also on the Layout tab, the Chapter title and headers card sets:

• Title — the chapter title against the left margin, centered, or against the right.
• Header rows — where the rows under the title sit (a date, a place, a point of view).
• Title case — As typed, Capitals or Small caps. The contents page always keeps titles as you typed them.
• Spacing — a little extra space between the letters, which capitals and small caps want: 0.05 is a touch, 0.1 is airy.
• Title size and Header size, in points.

How chapter numbers read—Chapter Four, 4, IV—and what goes in the rows under the title are set in the chapter header setup; see Set up your chapter headers. Pictures and ornaments for the opening are in Pictures in a chapter opening.

Headers and page numbers

Along the top of a printed book's pages runs a header—usually the author's name on the left-hand page and the title on the right—and at the foot, the page number. This page covers how they look and where the numbering starts. It's all in the Headers and footers card on the Layout tab of Page setup (in the Book menu).

Screenshot: the Headers and footers card, with Placement, Colour and Page count, and the switches below them.

What they say, and where they sit

The header carries your name on left-hand pages and the book's title on right-hand pages. The page number is centered at the foot of the page.

• Placement — Outside edges puts the headers at the outer corners of each spread, the traditional look. Centred puts them in the middle of every page.
• Colour — the ink for the headers and page numbers. A dark grey such as #333333 reads as black without competing with the text; plain black is fine too.

Their font is set on the Fonts tab, as Headers and footers; see Choose your fonts.

Pages without them

Headers and page numbers stay off the pages where they'd look out of place: the title page, the copyright page, a page that's a picture, the blank pages before a chapter, and the first page of each chapter or section. (That first page still counts; it simply doesn't show its number.)

For the rest of the front and back matter, two switches decide:

• Page numbers on front and back matter
• Headers on front and back matter

Where the count begins

Page count gives you three choices:

• From the first page — the title page is page 1, and the first chapter is whatever page it lands on. The usual choice in print today.
• Roman, then 1 — the front matter is numbered i, ii, iii, and the first chapter starts again at 1. The traditional publishing convention.
• Roman, count runs on — the front matter is numbered i, ii, iii, and the first chapter takes the next number: after xiv comes 15.

Whichever you choose, the back matter carries on from the chapters, and the contents page lists the numbers as they print.

Chapters on right-hand pages

Chapters open on a right-hand page adds a blank left-hand page before any chapter that would otherwise start on the left, the way most novels are made. Untick it to let each chapter start on the next page, which makes a slightly shorter book.