Self-publishing Handbook: Pre-formattingBefore you even start typesetting, you can do a lot of pre-formatting with a basic text-formatting program. However, before you start, you should make sure that program is compatible with the typesetting program you are going to use.

It’s very good idea to make a list of different text types you are going to have (chapter titles, first paragraphs, consecutive paragraphs, text messages characters send to each other etc.). Then you can use that information to create a table with what format each of those text types is going to have, so you can make sure everything is formatted consistently.

In that table you can mark down formatting features such as

  • Font, pt.
  • Bold, italicized
  • Justification
  • Indented paragraph
  • Spacing

If you are unsure about the compatibility of the programs you use, you can do a list of for example all italicized words and passages using the “search” function in your original document and then double check that those words are still in italics.