In this tutorial, you will learn how to format a book in Google Docs.
How To Format A Book In Google Docs
If you’re writing a book, you’ll need to make sure the formatting is consistent throughout the document. Google Docs makes this an easy task.
In this guide, we will show you how to format a book in Google Docs. We will go over setting the page size, margins, and spacing, as well as adding headers and footers to the document. We will also discuss how to export your document as a PDF or EPUB file.
How to Make a Book in Google Docs
Here’s our step-by-step guide on how to make a book in Google Docs.
Step 1
First, open the Google Docs document you want to format as a book.
In this guide, we’ll format an existing document with several paragraphs of content.
Step 2
The first formatting change we’ll make is adding indentation. To do this, select all the content in your document. An easy way to select everything in a document is with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A.
Select Format > Align & indent > Indentation options.
In the Indentation options dialog box, select ‘First line’ as an option under Special indent and choose the length of the indent in inches. Click on Apply to proceed.
In this example, I’ve added a 0.5in first line indent to all my paragraphs.
Step 3
Next, we’ll change the font style of our text to an option that looks more fitting for a novel or published book.
In this example, we’ve chosen a popular serif font like EB Garamond.
Step 4
Next, we’ll justify our text. Justified text simply adjusts the spacing between each word in a line so that both edges of the paragraph are straight.
We can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+J to justify our selected text.
Step 5
Most books have some form of header. These headers can indicate the name of the book or the current chapter the page is in. To insert a header into your document, click on Insert > Headers & footers > Header.
In this example, I’ll add the title of my novel as the header for each page.
Step 6
Under the header options, you can also choose to add page numbers. You can also access this option by selecting Format > Page numbers.
In the page numbers dialog box, you can choose whether to add page numbers on the header or footer of your page.
In this example, we’ll place our page numbers at the footer.
Step 7
Another step we’ll need to consider is adding a dedicated title page for your document.
Click on the different first page option in the header to remove the header from the first page.
Step 8
You can download your document as a regular PDF file or as an EPUB. EPUB files are great if you want users to be able to view your document in e-readers.
To download the document, click File > Download and select the file type you want.
Summary
This guide should be everything you need to learn how to format a book in Google Docs.
Click this link to make a copy of this sample document to try doing it yourself!