How to add or fix page numbers and title/author headers in your book

Feb 13, 2015

This is one of those things that you have to do every time you write a book, but because you don't do it that often, perhaps it's something that you keep forgetting (as I sometimes do when I'm not repeating an action), or maybe the program just won't do what you think it should be doing.  This can get very frustrating, so I thought I'd give you some instructions or tips to help you do this for yourself. This would probably be a good time to plug my services quickly, so here goes.  I offer complete formatting services for ebook or printed book (both are very different), for an affordable price.  For more information, check out my website: reillybooks.weebly.com.

These instructions work when using word - I've never typed a doc on a Mac, so I'm sorry, I can't be of much help there, but perhaps this can point you in the right direction.

When I write or edit in a Createspace template, I scale down the size of the document (in the bottom right corner opposite page and word count,) to 90%. This lets me see two pages at a time. It is worth noting that the pages are opposite to how they will appear in the book: the page you see on the left on your computer screen will be the page on the right in the actual printed book.  Therefore, I have left some reminders below to make sure things will print properly.

Once you have all of your introductory stuff added (title page, copyright page, dedication, acknowledgements, map or graphic, table of contents etc), and have started your actual story, this is a good time to enter the formatting.  I usually wait until all the "front matter" is done, so I don't have to add in pages or move things around later.

Formatting – set up your document

·         Back up the “Chapter 1” onto the previous page

·         Go to Page Layouts

·         Breaks

·         Section Breaks (this will drop "Chapter 1: back down to a new fresh page, which should be on the left screen page). The section break you have just created means that you won't have the author/title, or page numbers appearing on your front matter, they will begin when your story does.

Page numbers:

·         Go to footer

·         under the HEADER AND FOOTER design tab:

·         unclick the “link to previous” (make sure different odd/even pages, & show text doc are all checked)

·         Go to page number

·         Format page number: start on 1

·         Alignment for page numbers: left screen page - number to right (and vice versa) this puts the numbers at the outside edge of the actual book

Title/Name:

·         Go to header

·         unclick the link to previous

·         name goes on the top of the right screen page

·         Book title (italics) goes on the left screen page.

Note: for both page numbers in footer and author’s name/title in header, if they don’t appear to be continuing, or if a page number 3 is missing etc, double check that on that page in the footer or header, that you don’t have to unclick the “link to previous” again.  In my word document, I have had to do that a second time on that one page, for both the new numbers and the header.

Hope this helps, happy writing!