Self-publishing HandbookI had never even used InDesign, before I downloaded the test version to learn typesetting, so here are a few tips I had to learn through hard work.

  • Create an InDesign file in the size of what the final book is supposed to have
  • “Place” is the function with which you can place a Word document in InDesign. (The shortcut for MacBook is cmd + D).
  • InDesign shows you when the text doesn’t fit onto a page and you need to manually drag it to a new page until the red dot becomes green. Before you can do that you need to add new pages. (The shortcut for MacBook is cmd + P.)
  • A “Book” file in InDesign allows you to combine single documents (for example chapters) into a Book.
  • Make sure the page numbers (or footer or header) don’t interfere with the bleed margin.
  • Keep in mind that all the pages look natural on which side they would be in an actual book. For example a title page would be on the right hand side, so if the title would be on the left-hand side (the back of a page), you need to add an extra blank page.

Finally, always make sure to have safety copies of the different files, so that if you do something irreversibly wrong, you can always go back to the previous version. Also check none of the pre-formatting you have done was changed during the transferring process.