Create a Word Template for Self-Publishing eBook Formatting

Excerpt from eBook Formatting & Publishing Guide 4.0

Many of you are picking up this book after you have your manuscript written and ready to publish. So you may have a little more work than others starting from scratch.

Before I get into how to clean up your manuscript, I want to share how to make a Writing Template – so you hopefully won’t have to go through this process again.

Creating a Word Template

It is very easy to make a Word Template and you can create more than one. In the following, we are creating a very basic template for most fiction books using Heading 1 and Normal styles only.

The following is based on Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac. Please refer to your manual for locations of features discussed.

1. Open a blank Word file.
2. Type “Chapter 1”, highlight the words and select “Heading 1” from your drop down style menu.
3. Type basic text. Select the text and make sure “Normal” is selected from the drop down style menu.

Now, you need to modify the styles. Let’s start with the text style Normal.

1. Place your cursor anywhere in the Normal text.
2. Go to Format > Style
3. Click Modify
4. Adjust the font style, weight, and alignment. (Note: Make sure you choose “B” for bold and “I” for italic – do not choose a “bold font” such as Arial Bold – It will not convert as “bold” to an ebook – Always use a “regular” font and “apply” the styling.)
5. For your Normal text you need to decide if you want indented or block paragraphs. Choose the “Format” button in the lower left and select Paragraph.
6. Choose the First Line Indent if you want indented paragraph layout. Or choose spacing before or after each paragraph for block layout. Only set the Line Spacing to Single, 1.5 or double: DO NOT use At least, Exactly or Multiple.
7. Click OK to close the paragraph box.
8. Click OK.
9. Click Apply

Now, you need to modify the Chapter Heading

1. Place your cursor in your Chapter heading
2. Go to Format > Style
3. Click Modify
4. Adjust the font style, weight, and alignment to your desires. (Note: Make sure you choose “B” for bold and “I” for italic – do not choose a “bold font” such as Arial Bold – It will not convert as “bold” to an ebook – Always use a “regular” font and “apply” the styling.)
5. You do not want a first line indent for your Chapter headings. So to make sure it is removed: Choose the “Format” button in the lower left and select Paragraph.
6. Make sure Indentation is set to NONE.
7. Click OK to close the paragraph window.
8. Click OK.

Before you click “Apply” we want to apply these styles to your Default.

1. Click Organizer…

   On the left are the new document styles you just created in your open document. On the right are the default styles for Word (Normal.dotm).

2. Choose the Heading 1 and Normal styles on the left and Copy – -> them to the Normal.dotm (right).
3. A Popup box will display: “Do you wish to override existing style entry “XXX”?” Select Yes.
4. Click Close.
5. Click Apply.

Your new Template is almost ready.

1. Select File > Save As from your Menu.
2. In the Format dropdown menu, choose .dot or .dotx.
3. The Save window will take you to a folder called “My Templates”. This is the default area for all the Word Templates you create.
4. Pick a name that you will remember for the Template, such as Fiction-indent.dot.
5. Save.

See our Pre-styled Word, InDesign, Photoshop and eBook Templates