ePub / Book Design

This screencast covers how to create a book inside of InDesign. We'll start with text from Grimm's Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm.

If you notice, there are many stories in this collection. We're only going to create a couple chapter book using the first two stories within this compilation.

The first task whenever you're creating a book is to break up your chapters into individual text files. This will help you place these files in a design later.

To get started, bypass the table of contents and find the first story which is "The Golden Bird". Copy that and place it in its own plain text file.

I'm using TextEdit on the Mac. When you create a new file in TextEdit, it's actually a rich text file (RTF). You can see the ruler and tab stops at the top. Convert any file to plain text before you paste in the copy.

Come up to the Format menu and choose "Make Plain Text", then paste in our first chapter. Save this to your project folder and name it "Chapter 1" so you can reference it later.

Do the same thing for "Hans in Luck" which will be our second chapter. Copy, create a new plain text file, paste it in, and save it as "Chapter 2".

As you're breaking up a large chapter-based book into smaller files, take a look at each individual chapter to see if there's any text that you may have to manually adjust or format as you're laying out the book.

In Chapter 2, there are two specific spots with small bits of poetry. This formatting is completely different than normal paragraph formatting, so take note that Chapter 2 will need special manual formatting later.

Now we've got our two text files. The next step is to start setting up our document in InDesign. We're going to create a letter half-size book (paperback format).

Set the bottom margin to 1 inch (or 6 picas) and click OK. What we're creating here is the Style Source document.

The Style Source document is where all paragraph styles, character styles, object styles, table styles, master pages, and text variables are set up. These will be synchronized across all documents in your book.

This saves you from having to set up each style manually for every single chapter—very time-consuming and tedious. Looking at our chapters, they start with a title followed by paragraphs.

Create two separate paragraph styles: one for the chapter title and one for body paragraphs. For this assignment, every paragraph will be formatted the same way—no indents but with space after each paragraph (modern formatting).

Create some dummy text to format and use for creating paragraph styles. Start with dummy text for the chapter title, then use Type → Fill with Placeholder Text for body paragraphs.

Triple-click the first paragraph (chapter title) and style it as you want each chapter title to look: centered, all caps, bold. Change it up however you like.

Increase font size to 18 points and in Paragraph options, increase space after to 14 points.

Once happy with the visual formatting, click the "New Style" button in the Paragraph Styles panel. It captures all formatting from the selected paragraph. Rename this "Chapter Title".

Quadruple-click the first body paragraph to select it entirely. Style it as you want all body paragraphs: Adobe Caslon Pro Regular, 10 points, 14 points leading, 14 points space after.

Create a new style and name this "Body Paragraph".

Set up the "Next Style" option. This allows you to apply a style to the first paragraph, then tell InDesign to switch to another style after each paragraph break.

Double-click the Chapter Title style. Under General options, change Next Style to "Body Paragraph". The Body Paragraph style is already set to loop through and continue using itself.

Test the Next Style: select all text, right-click on Chapter Title style → "Apply Chapter Title and Next Style". The chapter title gets Chapter Title style, all subsequent paragraphs get Body Paragraph style.

Next, set up Master Pages. In the Pages panel, double-click to edit the A-Master page. We'll set up running headers and page numbers (folios).

With the Type tool, create a text frame in the bottom left corner. Clear any paragraph styles, then go to Type → Insert Special Character → Markers → Current Page Number. This inserts an "A" (representing the A-Master).

Style the page number: center-aligned, Adobe Caslon Pro Bold, 12 points. Open Text Frame Options (Cmd/Ctrl + B) and set Vertical Justification to Center.

Copy this frame: hold Option/Alt and drag to the right-facing page. Now both pages have current page numbers. Check by double-clicking the first page—it shows "1".

Set up running headers. The easiest way is to let InDesign manage this using Text Variables. Left facing page = chapter name, Right facing page = book name.

Go to Type → Text Variables → Define. Create a new variable called "Book Title", type: Custom Text. Enter "Grimm's Fairy Tales". Using variables allows you to change text across the entire book by modifying just one variable.

Create another variable: "Grimm Running Header", type: Running Header (Paragraph Style). This targets the Chapter Title paragraph style to pull text for the running header.

Insert variables into the Master page. Create text frames at the top of each page. On the left page: insert variable "Grimm Running Header". On the right page: insert variable "Book Title". Style appropriately (Caslon Regular for chapter, Caslon Italic for book title, right-aligned).

Back on the first page, you'll see "Grimm's Fairy Tales" as the running header. If you change text with the Chapter Title style applied, the running header updates automatically.

The Style document is complete with paragraph styles, master pages, and text variables. Save this as "Chapter 1"—we'll use it to lay in content and as our Style Source.

Create individual empty InDesign documents for all other content: Chapter 2, Cover page, and Table of Contents. Ensure each has the same trim and margin settings as the Style Source.

Create the Book file: go to File → New → Book (no keyboard shortcut). Name it "Grimm" and save to the project folder. The extension is .indb (InDesign Book).

In the Book panel, click the plus button to add documents. Select all your InDesign documents and click Open. They'll appear in alphabetical order.

Rearrange documents so they're in correct order: Cover, Table of Contents, Chapter 1, Chapter 2. The numbers on the right show which page each document begins on.

Ensure the Style Source icon is next to Chapter 1. This document has all your styles, master pages, and variables that will synchronize to other documents.

Set up document numbering. Double-click the page number for Table of Contents: set to start at page i (lowercase Roman numeral). For Chapter 1: start at page 1 (Arabic numeral) and check "Start New Chapter".

Synchronize styles across all documents. Select all documents in the Book panel, go to Book menu → Synchronize Options. Check "Master Pages" (not checked by default), then click Synchronize.

Now add content. Go to File → Place. Check "Show Import Options", select Chapter 1 text, and click Open.

In Text Import Options, set Character Set to Unicode UTF-8 to preserve typographer's quotes and special characters. Check "Remove Extra Carriage Returns" at end of lines and between paragraphs.

Use autoflow: hold Shift and click in the top left margin. The cursor shows a curved arrow. InDesign adds as many pages as needed to layout the text.

If text was placed with wrong style, select all and reset to Basic Paragraph, then right-click Chapter Title → "Apply Chapter Title and Next Style" to properly format everything.

Repeat for Chapter 2: File → Place, select Chapter 2 text, ensure UTF-8 encoding, autoflow, then apply Chapter Title and Next Style. Delete any extra empty pages.

Manual formatting for poetry: In Chapter 2, locate the poems. Remove extra spaces, add carriage returns for each line. Remove excess paragraph spacing and add 14 points left indent to set them apart visually.

For the Cover page: apply the None master page to remove running headers and page numbers. Insert the Book Title text variable and format it (Caslon Bold Italic, 24 points).

Create the Table of Contents. First, create separate paragraph styles for the TOC title and entries, plus a character style for page numbers. Do not use the same styles as the book content.

Create dummy text: "Table of Contents" and "This is an entry [tab] page number". Style the title (Caslon, space after), style the entry (Caslon Regular, 12pt, 14pt space after, right-aligned tab with leaders), and style the page number (semi-bold italic).

Create new paragraph styles from this formatting. Name the title style "ToC Title" (lowercase 'o' to differentiate from InDesign's hidden "TOC Title" style). Name the entry style "ToC Entry" and page number character style "ToC Page Number".

Generate the TOC: go to Layout → Table of Contents. Set title to "Table of Contents" using your "ToC Title" style. Add Chapter Title paragraph style to the list of styles to include.

Click More Options. Set entry style to "ToC Entry", page number to come After Entry, styled with your character style. Change the separator from regular tab to Right Indent Tab (shown as ^y) to push page numbers to the right margin.

Check "Include Book Documents" and click OK. InDesign generates the TOC with entries and page numbers. Save the document.

Package the book for print: Select all documents in the Book panel, go to Book menu → Package Book for Print. Review the preflight summary for any RGB images or spot ink issues.

Choose location (project folder), name it "Grimm Folder". Check "Include Fonts and Links" and "Include IDML" (allows earlier InDesign versions to open the files). Use "Press Quality" PDF preset. Click Package.

InDesign creates the package folder with all documents, fonts, links, IDML versions, and a press-quality PDF. That's how you create a book in InDesign.