A well organized Word document will make turning your work into a Kindle or print book far easier if you simply follow some basic suggestions. This post is about how to set up heading styles. Set up your styles before you begin typing a single word!
Most fiction only needs one heading for the chapters. Sometimes there are subheadings within a chapter, but that seems more common in non-fiction. Word provides multiple heading styles. I encourage you to use the default styles: Heading 1 and Heading 2.
The Word table of contents creation feature defaults to Heading 1 through Heading 3. Using the default styles makes creating a table of contents super easy. Most novels don’t really lend themselves to a table of contents, but Amazon / KDP requires one for the Kindle version, so use the default headings and make it easy on yourself. (I usually put the Kindle table of contents at the end if it is just Chapter 1, Chapter 2…)
What if you just cannot stand how the headings look? You can change the style to any font or font size, center them, change the color… I encourage you to not get too fancy, but you can make it look however you want.
Find Heading 1 in the toolbar at the top, right click it and choose Modify.
Choose which font and size you want to use for Chapter headings. (Note: Your window should say Heading 1 in the Name field, not Normal!) When you've chosen the font and size you want, click the Format button in the lower left.
Click Paragraph in the dropdown that appears.
For an attractive chapter heading I recommend you set the Alignment to Center, make sure the indents are both 0, Special should be set to None, Set Before to 0 and After to somewhere between 8 and 12 pt (this allows for some separation between the chapter heading and the start of the narrative) and, finally, set the line spacing to Single.
If you plan on using subheadings in your work, do the same thing for heading 2. You might want to use a slightly smaller font and maybe italics to set it off nicely, but you can do that after you write the book and start the formatting process (or let your friendly formatter do all that stuff).
To apply a style, first type in the chapter heading or subheading. Put your cursor at the beginning of it and click the style in the toolbar. You'll see it change immediately. If the style you want does not appear in the toolbar, click the little tiny arrow below the Styles section.
A window will open to the left of your document showing all the styles available. You may have to scroll down to find the one you want.
Remember: the font you choose for headings only applies to your preference or the print book. The Kindle version allows the reader to choose the font, font size and line spacing that they prefer.
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