Formatting a book in Microsoft Word may seem convenient, but it’s fraught with challenges. Headers, footers, drop caps, and manual adjustments can become hair-pulling tasks. Unlike Word, Adobe InDesign offers seamless formatting with parent pages, precise previews, and easier global changes. Learn why Word may not be your best choice for book formatting and discover a smoother alternative with Adobe InDesign.
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I will never use word because they can look at my work and every single edit I make as well. I am not going to train Microsoft’s Open AI to write or edit.
I don’t use Word for Formatting because it loves to delete my MS! I use Vellum.
Is there a cost effective way that isn’t Word? InDesign is amazing, but I can’t justify an Adobe subscription as the only reason I’d need it is for publishing purposes.
Mandy, gotta correct you: there are paragraph-styles in word and that makes it easy and quick to change font and sizes in seconds. Windows users have an advantage, because it just works better and easier. on mac you sometimes need to do it a second time to work. But you absolutely CAN and SHOULD do paragraph-styles 😀
For everyone still using word and the headers: Click the “First Page different” option so you dont have it on the page with the chapter number. Normally the break automatically adapts to new pages added in. Technically you can put a chapter art in the header to automatically get it for a new chapter if you put the section break in
Paragraph styles are also in word and that makes it pretty easy for rough pre-visulising
For all the word fans:
I understand using word over indesign tho. I did it one because for the sake of it indesign didn’t allow the footnotes how they were supposed to be and the linking of layer styles didn’t work either.
When you know what you’re doing, word is great to format BUT there it’s prone to do stuff and make mistakes that make no sense (empty pages and stuff) so if you hate indesign, but have access to it, make the previsualisation in word and rebuild it in indesign. NEVER do it the other way round. Trust me you don’t want that. And if you have many images in your book, don’t do it in word. Never. I had to do things like that at one point or another, but trust me, it’s not save and hella lot of work and the pics get pixelated and what not. So pre-vis in word, export formatting in indesign. I feel you if you hate ID. I did to, but you get used to it!
Some of those things you have mentioned is the overworked method to do it. There are easier ways to do those things in Microsoft Word, bit it falls under more complex and more advanced knowledge on how to use the software
Thank you so much. I understand and agree that Adobe Indesign is better and more powerful.
Just want to say though, for #5, Microsoft Word has Styles that can be created to control portions of your content automatically… not manually…similar to Indesign. You can also assign short-cut keys to styles to make it easier to apply formatting as you’re working throughout the file. And if you need to change a style from one to another, you can use a global replace of the particular style. You don’t have to manually do it section by section.
I’m just starting in this process, so… I’ll construct content in Word, import to InDesign…which keeps the styles I created, then format for the more professional structure for output as you recommend.
I’m sharing because I hope those tips can help. Adobe software can be an investment.
Although Microsoft Word is more of a word processor, I rather use Word with professional book templates, if I’m going to do it myself. At least since doing a one-time purchase, I can use Word without doing monthly payments for the program, and with the professional book templates I get, I can use them as many times as I want after paying a one-time purchase for them.
They have all kinds of designs on the website site I use and make formatting in Word a lot easier rather than starting from scratch, or you could just type write in them and add the other formatting later (headers, page numbers, drop caps, etc.) There are also tutorials for how to do it on the site too for both Word and InDesign.
Nonetheless, if I want to really ensure I have a professional-looking interior design for my books, I’d rather hire a pro designer for a one-time purchase job than pay monthly for a program I’ll only use once in a while, but that’s just me…lol.
I’ve tried to learn InDesign but still don’t get it…?