The latest version of my book is sitting at 24 chapters and over 118k words. It formats to 167 pages with a 10pt font and single spaced.
Does anyone have any advice on how to format for an easy reading experience on a PDF? I don't mind the defaults, but I can always improve the reading experience for my test readers.
#writing #writestr #novel #novelist #formatting #pdf #wordcount #asknostr
biggest problem with pdfs on e-readers is that they are usually formatted for a partiuclar "page size" which is at least double the average e-reader screen size. The upshot of this is the text areas are far too wide, which means to fit them left-to-right on the screen, they shrink to an uncomfortable size.
Short answer for .pdf: more pages, narrow or zero side margins, fewer words per line. Imagine printing the PDF to the size of an e-reader screen and you'll be on the right track.
The _best_ answer is to provide a .epub format. then there are no issues.
I... Had no idea... 🫣😅🤣
The epub was just about half the size of the already more compact PDF, though, I exported the pdf with a 10pt font, single spaced. 167 pages of fairly dense text.
12 point double speced balloons up to 460 pages. Ouch.
I'm not in publishing or possessing any special knowledge here - just speaking as an end user.
Since PDFs dont "re-flow" when you pull the margins in, something's gotta give. So it shrinks like a .jpg
Until today, I would've recommended Atticus. It makes formatting for pdf or epub and for any standard sized paper or book, so easy from one text. Today, I can't get in it to finish my book. I'm hoping there is just a brief server outage, and all will be well. I think I have up-to-date backups, but I don't know what to do with them if atticus isn't working.
Ouch. That's got to be so nerve-wracking!
I only and specifically use FOSS. I type in a plain text editor and then copy and paste into LibreOffice for exporting into other formats, and currently, I'm totally sold on epub.
The ability to do basic formatting in the document and then export in multiple forms with very specific formatting using templates or creating your own in Atticus is so nice and so easy. The formatting is much nicer than in LibreOffice, which is what I started with. We'll see.
And it's back. I think shutting down my computer and rebooting when I got to work has fixed it. I feel better now.
I think it could be a good resource, but I'm always skeptical of things that say this:
I regularly save local backups as well.
I don't like trusting online backups for any secure information, but since the whole point of my writing is to share it with everyone I can, I don't guess I care too much about someone hacking, and getting access to my stuff. I also have enough paper and electronic evidence to show that I am the creator.
It is a whole different thing if we are talking bank info, personal info, etc.
Many years ago I used this program to reflow the text of pdf books so that I could read them on my small mobile screen:
There is several great web apps that do this wonderfully. I like Atticus.
