Learn How to Format Your Book with Adobe InDesign

[This is a Hybrid Event! You can join either in person at our classroom in Roswell, Georgia, or online from anywhere in the world.]

This is a watch-and-learn, all-day workshop that will take you through the basics of formatting your book from a Microsoft Word document into a properly formatted book design in Adobe InDesign.

Taught by Kimberly Martin of Jera Publishing, who has been formatting books for over 25 years. Follow along as she walks you through her process for taking a Microsoft Word document, bringing it into Adobe InDesign, laying out the interior in a proper book format, and exporting it as a print-ready PDF that can be sent to a printer such as IngramSpark or KDP.

Bring your laptop with Adobe InDesign installed and your Microsoft Word document if you would like to follow along, but you should not expect to leave with your book fully formatted. Kimberly will walk through each step at a steady pace without stopping for individual troubleshooting. What you will leave with is a clear understanding of the process, the tools to do it yourself, and everything you need to go home and get it done.

We will be taking a 45-minute lunch break and two shorter breaks throughout the day. I suggest bringing a lunch to have in the classroom, but you are free to leave to grab something nearby. A fridge and microwave are available, and coffee, tea, and water are provided.

An InDesign book template created by Kimberly will be used throughout the class to speed up the setup process and will be made available to everyone who attends. A step-by-step handout will also be provided so you can focus on learning rather than taking notes, and use it as your guide when you sit down to format your own book at home.

The steps covered include:

• Preparing your Microsoft Word document so it's ready to be placed into InDesign
• Understanding book anatomy (front matter, back matter, and where everything goes)
• Creating the InDesign document setup for your book (page size, margins, gutters, and more)
• Understanding how facing pages work and why it matters for book layout
• Creating and using Parent Pages (previously called Master Pages) for different sections of your book
• Placing your Word document into InDesign
• Running scripts to preserve italics, underlines, bold, and other formatting
• Creating and applying styles for a consistent book layout
• Setting running heads and page numbering
• Creating a table of contents
• Adding chapter title ornamentation
• Adding images
• Setting hyphenation rules
• Dealing with widows and orphans
• Adjusting kerning to even out the bottoms of pages
• Exporting a print-ready PDF for your printer

This class is the first in a two-part series. The second class, Converting Your InDesign Book File to an eBook, picks up where this one leaves off and walks you through converting your formatted print interior into an eBook file ready for distribution. It will be held about two weeks after this session. Attending the Learn How to Format Your Book with Adobe InDesign class is strongly recommended before taking the eBook conversion class.