WRITING EBOOKS: TIPS FOR PROPERLY FORMATTING TEXT

The rules for formatting vary between print and online viewing for obvious reasons. Following these simple tips will help you project an image of a professional writer.

• Quotes and apostrophes should be curly when in print form. Many writers are fine with straight quotes in electronic form since Word can be buggy with the quotes. This is a bit of a hot topic with some writers and web designers, but the short story is that curly quotes and apostrophes are correct. The straight, or “dumb”, quotes were created with the invention of the typewriter. The typewriter didn’t have room for the curly quotes, and it certainly didn’t have room for an extra key for the left curly quote. Some of the less effective HTML converters will garble your curly quotes and they will tell you to use straight quotes, such as Article Marketer. This is due to their inability to convert the curly quote, not because it is correct.  Tools>Auto Correct Options>Auto Format>check.

• If you are using Auto Format you need to watch for curls that go the wrong way, especially in cases such as ‘08 for 2008.

• To insert proper trademark, registered, and copyright symbols just do the key combination Control-Alt-T/R/C.

• Prime and double prime (angled straight quotes and apostrophes) are used for foot and inch and minutes and seconds. An option is to italicize straight quotes.

• Underlining is rarely used in print.

• Don’t use more than one space after a sentence.

• Paragraphs in print should be indented ¼ or slightly more, but less than ½ and inch, with no extra space between paragraphs. For electronic books block paragraphs are common with no indent and a space between paragraphs equal to 1.5 – 2 times the height between sentences. If you use line spacing of 1.5 rather than the default 1.0, you will need a larger space between paragraphs.

• Adjust paragraph spacing using Format>Paragraph>Spacing and adjust the before and after. You can also adjust the line spacing on this page.

• Justify your text for a neat clean look in print and digital.

• Fonts for eBooks should be sans serif, which is easier to read in electronic form. Popular choices are Aerial, Verdana, Tahoma, Courier, and Helvetica. Verdana was designed specifically for clarity and easy reading on a computer.

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