Quality interior design enhances credibility and makes your book look “real.” Creative book covers generate consumer interest. Creative interior designs encourage page turning and pick up where the cover leaves off to convert that interest into a sale. A graphics pro can complete your book in a timely manner at an affordable price.

Book design is a specialty like any other, and without training in typography and experience in graphic design, a “do-it-yourself” interior can quickly undermine the good first impression a professional cover creates.

There are many elements involved in a successful interior design. Size, binding, paper, page layout and typography work together to present your subject matter in an appropriate and attractive way. An experienced graphic designer creates appealing pages that hold interest and convince the reader that your book is the one to buy. If the interior design of your book doesn’t surprise and delight you, don’t expect it to impress anyone else.

One way to make your book stand out is to adopt an unusual page size and orientation. Standard sizes exist primarily for printing efficiency, but that doesn’t obligate you to use them. With a few limitations imposed by bindery equipment, a book can be almost any size or shape — horizontal, vertical, square, oval or even a star. Standard is another way to say ordinary.

Paper can also enhance your book. You don’t have to use white. There are hundreds of papers in a variety of colors, weights, and finishes. Your designer can show you samples and help you choose a paper that enhances your message, feels good in the hand, and adds a sense of value to your book.

While “non-standard” options will cost more, they could provide the visual interest that causes the buyer to stop and look at your book.

We have all seen confusing ads and articles that leave us wondering what to read first. Novels, directories, reference books, computer manuals, and magazines each require a different approach to page layout. Successful page layout invites the reader in and subtly leads the eye from one section to the next. The right fonts, careful spacing, and a pleasing arrangement work together to make reading a pleasure instead of a chore. An experienced typesetter has the tools to carefully adjust justification, word spacing, and letterspacing to give your text an even “color” that’s easy on the eyes, and that delivers better reading comprehension as a bonus.

Interior book design is much more than decoration. When all the elements of good design work in harmony, the result is a beautiful book, inside and out. Your manuscript represents an enormous effort. Creative interior design will bring it to life — make it a “real” book that you can promote with pride and more importantly, sell.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Michele DeFilippo, owner, 1106 Design

Spacing after punctuation: When you typeset a book, be sure to insert only a single space after all punctuation. (It’s OK to disobey your high school typing teacher, I promise). A double space after a period used to be necessary when we prepared text on a typewriter, because the “width” of each letter, whether it was a “w” or an “I” was exactly the same. But that issue was resolved long ago with digital fonts.

Proper dashes: There are three kinds of dashes in every type font. Most people are familiar with the first two, hyphens and em dashes. Hyphens are used to hyphenate words and separate phone numbers. Em dashes are a form of punctuation, used to offset clauses in a sentence. The third kind of dash is an En dash, typically half the length of an Em dash, which used to denote duration, as in 8:00–5:00, or August 12–14. In most software packages, you can access the En dash by typing Option-hyphen.
Proper quotation marks: Use true (curly) quotation marks and apostrophes. Using tick marks directly from the keyboard sends the message “I don’t care how this stuff looks.” This is a preference that can be defined in InDesign.

Use of small caps: Set all uppercase text slightly smaller than the surrounding text. Otherwise, your capitals will SCREAM at the reader. The size of small caps can be customized in InDesign.

Letter spacing of capitalized text: Add letter spacing to capitalized text and small caps. Capitalized text or small caps appearing within normal text can appear too tight and crowded; they need to be loosened up a bit. Avoid letter spacing in lowercase book text. Looser spacing always decreases readability.

Old style numbers: Use old style figures when available and appropriate. Old style figures are also known as non-lining numerals, because they don’t line up on the baseline. They can be thought of as lower case numbers, and look better in text passages than the usual lining numerals. Use a slightly smaller point size for numbers when old style numerals are not available. They blend in better and don’t jump out at the reader.

Use of boldface and italics: Use boldface text sparingly. Bold text is like a magnet to our eyes, and will ruin the continuity of your text. Italics and bold text, when overused, can appear condescending to the reader…as if you are saying, “I don’t think you’ll understand my words unless I emphasize what’s important.” There are exceptions to this rule, of course. In a textbook, bold face is often used to denote important terms that appear in the glossary. Judgment is the key.
Avoid underlined text: Even more distracting than boldface text is underlined text, which is a typographic abomination that should be avoided.

Special characters: The © (copyright), ® (registered trademark), and ™ (trademark) characters almost always need to be reduced, sometimes by as much as 50%, depending on the font.

Proper formatting of ellipses: According to the current Chicago Manual of Style, ellipses should be set with a word space on either side and a word space between each dot. Format these with a non-breaking space before the ellipsis and between each dot, but a normal word space after the ellipsis,  so that the ellipsis won’t break in the middle or begin on a new line.

Size of ballot boxes: Decrease the size of ballot boxes. As a general rule, these characters should be about two points smaller than the surrounding text.

Use of bullets: Consider using other characters besides bullets. They’re rather boring and overused. Just like ballot boxes, whatever you substitute should also be two points smaller than the text. But don’t go overboard. Your text shouldn’t have too many different kinds of bullet characters. That will make your book look homemade and amateurish.

Word stacks: Avoid beginning or ending three consecutive lines with the same word. Override your software for a better look, by adjusting word spacing or tracking manually in that paragraph only, or by rewriting the text.

Congratulations! If you’ve read all nine posts, now you know why it takes a pro so long to typeset a book, and why it costs money. If you’re the type of person who just loves to tackle this level of detail, then by all means try to typeset your book (or call me, I may have a job opening for you). If not, then consider hiring a book designer. Believe it or not, all of these rules are just the basics. We’re just getting started. Now, we have to make your book beautiful!

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Michele DeFilippo, owner, 1106 Design

Hyphenation: When you typeset a book, it helps to understand that hyphenation works hand-in-hand with justification settings to create book type that is easy to read. Hyphenation should be set so the reader isn’t annoyed by too many hyphens generally, or too many hyphens in a row. I allow 3 hyphens in a row. More than that, and it starts to look like ladders on the right margin. Some publishers prefer no more than 2 hyphens in a row. Some publishers specify a limit for the number of hyphens on a page, a rule which can’t be defined in software, which means the designer has to manually adjust every paragraph on the page!

In InDesign, I set the minimum number of letters in a word before a hyphen to 3, because a hyphen after 2 letters is really distracting. The reader has to guess what the word may be. I set the minimum number of letters after a hyphen to 4, so that the common suffix –ing doesn’t wind up on the next line. You can also choose the minimum length of the word that may be hyphenated. I choose 7 for regular text. If you’re allowing hyphens in ragged text as discussed above, you may want to set this value higher, so that only very long words are broken.

In book design, it’s best to avoid hyphenating the last line on the page, because once again, it forces the reader to wonder what comes next, and hold that partial word in mind as they continue reading. The stub end of a hyphenated word should never be the last line in a paragraph. Ugly.

Avoid hyphenating capitalized words such as names, locations and titles. InDesign has a checkbox for this preference, but if you’re working in an application that doesn’t  offer this feature, then you can enter the “no-break” character before such words.

In the next post, we’ll get even further into the nitty-gritty of typesetting. Yep, you’re not done yet…there’s even more to think about!

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Michele DeFilippo, owner, 1106 Design

Word spacing: Word spacing in a book should be fairly close, it’s easier to read. When type is justified so that the left and right margins are flush, any typesetting system will adjust the spacing between words to accomplish this goal. Here is where InDesign and other page layout applications leave Word in the dust. In any page layout program, the built-in justification algorithms are much more sophisticated than those found in a word processor, so that the variations in spacing are more consistent. This issue is generally known as the “color” of the text (even though the text is all black). A page of text should look uniform in color without overly tight lines (which look dark) or overly loose lines (which look light). The “color” should be even. This is accomplished by changing the justification settings.
There are three settings in InDesign’s Justification dialog box: Word Spacing, Letter Spacing and Glyph Scaling. I set the minimum word spacing to 100%, the desired word spacing to 105%, and the maximum word spacing to 133%, and vary the settings as needed (different fonts require different settings).
I set minimum letter spacing to -5%, desired letter spacing to 0%, and maximum letter spacing to 5%. These settings allow InDesign to add space between letters, as well as words when necessary to justify the text, but only by an imperceptible amount that won’t disturb the reader.
The third setting in this dialog box is Glyph Scaling, which allows InDesign to condense or expand the letters. Again, you don’t want this to be noticeable to the reader, so the settings I use are minimum, 98%; desired, 100%; and maximum 102%. Just as you did with choosing a type font and type size, don’t get hung up on numbers…experiment with different settings and let your eyes tell you what looks best.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Michele DeFilippo, owner, 1106 Design

Now that we’ve dealt with the “big picture items” in the last five posts, we can begin to address the finer points of typography that should be considered when you typeset a book.

Line spacing: Lines of text that are too close to each other can be difficult to read. That’s why you’ll often see line spacing of 4 or more points in books. That means, if your text is 11 point, your line spacing should be 15 points or even more. Line spacing (also known as leading) should be significantly greater than the space between words for maximum legibility, and should increase proportionally as the line length increases.

Line spacing can help expand the page count of a small book, or decrease the page count of a long book to save on printing costs. Small changes here can make a huge difference, so feel free to experiment, as long as you don’t sacrifice readability in the process. (Try printing out sample paragraphs and folding your page vertically to compare your leading to that in books that you like. Book designers will often roughly format all the text in a book to get a rough idea of the page count before attending to smaller details to make sure the page count doesn’t exceed the amount the client budgeted for printing. Another bit of advice: A short book can’t be made into a long one, so please don’t try to fool people by adding so much line spacing that it looks silly.

Paragraph spacing: In most cases there should NOT be a line of space above each paragraph in a book (the exception might be a training manual, where the reader will be looking away from the text to follow instructions, and then looking back.) A line space above a paragraph can be used sparingly to indicate a scene change or a new section. Whenever there is a line space above a paragraph, eliminate the first-line indent on that paragraph. Both indents and line spaces say “stop” to the reader, so you don’t have to send the message twice.

Alignment: In books, an easy way to make the type conform to the book block is to set line spacing for everything as a multiple of your primary leading so that text lines up across the page. For example, if your text is 11 point on 16 points of leading, then your subheads might be set up as 20 point type with 11 point leading and 16 points (or one full line) of space above them.

But what if your subheads are two or more lines? You can’t set 20-point type on 16 points of leading, or the words will overlap. Neither can you set 20-point subheads on 32 points of leading, because that’s just too much space. But you still want your text to line up across the page. Here’s the solution: Set your 20-point subheads on 22 points of leading (which looks nice). This gives you 2 lines x 22 = 44 points. 44 isn’t an exact multiple of 16, but 48 is (16×3) so just add one line (16) plus 4 extra points above each 2-line subhead and the problem is solved. (Or you can add 16 points above each 2-line subhead and 4 points below.) I usually make two style sheets in InDesign: one for single-line subheads, and another for two-line subheads. If you have a 3-line subhead, you can follow the same process, but it might be better to whittle these down to fewer words instead.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Michele DeFilippo, owner, 1106 Design

The book block: It’s not until you typeset a book that you really understand insanity. If you follow the rules, that is. The main reason that a book looks like a book (rather than a brochure or a report) is that the text is confined to a tightly-defined area on every page called the book block. When a book is opened, facing pages should end on the same line. Sounds easy enough, but this is, in fact, the area where book designers spend an inordinate amount of time for the following reasons.

Line widows and orphans: Within the book block, there’s an additional set of rules in book design and typesetting that must be addressed: that the first line of a paragraph shouldn’t fall on the last line on a page, and the last line of a paragraph should not appear on the top of a page. Why? Because each of these situations makes the reader stop, and this impedes reading comprehension. So how does a designer accomplish this feat? There are various ways. The most common way is to allow the page bottoms to vary, making pages one line longer or one line shorter than the established baseline, as long as facing pages still end on the same line. Even with this flexibility, it’s often necessary to rework a number of pages to accomplish the goal.

Word Widows: Another rule of book design, which varies from publisher to publisher, is that the last line of a paragraph should never be a word less than 5 characters long, including punctuation. Some publishers do not allow a paragraph to end with one word on the last line, regardless of its length. The way around this is to adjust word spacing and tracking values within the paragraph, but very subtly, so it’s not noticeable by the reader.

Lines after a subhead: Another rule that aids reading comprehension is that at least two lines of text should follow a subhead at the bottom of the page. You guessed it, while still maintaining the book block. To do this, a book designer will typically go back and forth and rework pages as needed until the goal is accomplished.
With certain kinds of text, it’s flat-out impossible to maintain a rigid book block. Text with many subheads, or many bullet items often can’t be made to conform to all the above rules, no matter how much time the designer spends. In this situation, the rules can be relaxed and the goal becomes to keep the pages as balanced as possible. As a last resort, sometimes it’s necessary to rewrite text to add or delete a few words to lengthen or shorten a paragraph by one line, if maintaining the book block can’t be accomplished any other way.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Michele DeFilippo, owner, 1106 Design

Font size: When you typeset a book you can probably set the text smaller than you think. Because nearly everyone is familiar with Word, which uses a default type size of 12-point, most people who attempt to lay out their own book choose this size. This works fine on an 8.5 x 11 page, but it’s usually too large for a book, where the line length of the text is much smaller. Type that is too large can make your book look self-published, and reflect poorly on the credibility of your message. The rule of thumb for easy reading used by typographers (who typically work in measurements called picas, rather than inches) is that the number of characters (letters, punctuation, and spaces) on a line should not exceed 2.5 times the line length in picas. There are 6 picas to an inch. Using a 6×9 book as an example, the width of the page is 36 picas. Subtract 3 picas for the outside margin, and 4 picas for the inside margin and you’re left with a line length of 29 picas. So you should choose a type size that gets no more than 70 characters per line for easiest reading.

But don’t get hung up on the math. Print out sample paragraphs in different sizes and in different fonts. A common mistake made by inexperienced folks is to work in isolation, to imagine what a good book should look like, and then declare the results acceptable. Don’t imagine. Print out your samples, fold them and compare a line of your text to books produced by major publishers and adjust accordingly. Some typefaces look larger than others, even if they are the same size. For example, 10-point Utopia, a modern font, has very round, open characters, and so it looks much larger than 10-point Adobe Garamond or Goudy Oldstyle, classic fonts often used in books. Forget rules and numbers. Trust your eyes.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Michele DeFilippo, owner, 1106 Design

Choosing right font: When typesetting a book, it’s almost always best to choose a serif type face, such as Palatino, Garamond or Goudy. There are dozens of other good choices. (Just stay away from Times Roman, please. It’s meant for narrow column measures in newspapers and is difficult to read in longer documents.) The important thing to remember is that serif type is naturally better for text that is to be read continuously. When we read, our mind is trained to recognize the shapes of words rather than reading letter by letter and serifs form a link between letters. Sans serif typefaces are often less legible, though they can be effectively paired with serif typefaces for use in sidebars, captions, or subheads.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Michele DeFilippo, owner, 1106 Design

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Michele DeFilippo, owner, 1106 Design

I’ll start with “big picture” considerations, and work my way down to more specific typesetting points in future posts. As you read, you’ll understand why Word is not the best software to typeset a book, no matter what others may say, and why it’s important to use a page layout program such as InDesign if you do decide to take on the task yourself.

Text style: One of the first decisions a book designer makes when starting to typeset a book is whether the text will be justified or ragged. Justified text imparts a formal tone, whereas ragged text is more casual and personal. The choice should suit the tone of your text. Just keep in mind that reading a large volume of ragged right text can become very annoying, very quickly. If you choose it anyway, turn off hyphenation, or set the hyphenation parameters so that only very long words are hyphenated (for example, only words longer than 15 characters). This will prevent large gaps at the end of the line when the following word is very long, but not annoy the reader with too many hyphens. Much more on hyphenation in future posts.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Michele DeFilippo, owner, 1106 Design