The Roaring Twenties is featured heavily in my earlier works. Since some of my characters carry on through to modern times, the unique language indicative of this period follows along as well.
To help new readers situation themselves with the language of the period, I’ve compiled a list of slang from that era.
(more…)Modern word processors work with the What You See is What You Get paradigm. While that’s mostly true for simple documents, inconsistencies are often introduced into complex documents. This includes but is not limited to:
Some of these examples may go undetected until the work is published. These inconsistencies further complicate fault finding an EPUB, as they lead to additional styles and tags being introduced into the code.
Markdown is a human markup language that permits users to use formatting like Bold, Italics, Monospace, and Strike Through without any knowledge of the underlying code. This simple syntax can be leveraged to generate clean manuscripts.
Sample Markdown Text
# Clean Manuscripts Using Markdown
Modern word processors often subscribe to the [What You See is
What You Get](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG) paradigm.
While true for simple documents, inconsistencies are easy to
find in complex documents. These include but are not limited to:
* Formatting differences introduced by _Copy_ and _Paste_
operations.
* Different styles applied throughout. E.g. Some paragraphs are
1.2 line spaces, while others are set to 1.15 line spaces.
* Selection errors. E.g. The user selected more than expected
prior to formatting text, such as _Italics_.
[Markdown](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown) is a human
markup language that permits users to use formatting like
**Bold**, _Italics_, `Monospace`, and ~~Strike Through~~ without
any knowledge of the underlying code. The simple Markdown’s
syntax can be leveraged to generate _clean_ manuscripts.
Fortunately, Google Docs offers extensions that converts documents to and from Markdown on demand. The overall process is straightforward:
You won’t typically find Emojis in formal writing. However, they’re commonly used in digital communications. You’ll find them on social media, text messaging, and a myriad of other apps available on desktop and mobile devices.
While using Emojis in a manuscript mimics text conversations between two parties, there are challenges:
Here are some points to consider:
You want to insert images for print into your manuscript. Using Microsoft Word, the images are inserted, and their size and position adjusted to suit the content. When happy with the end result, you save your work and submit.
After a test print, you realise the quality is lower than expected. Furthermore, attempts to increase their size makes the image blurry, and pixelated. What happened?
By default, Microsoft Word resizes images to reduce the document’s file size. This happens to any image over 220 DPI, a limit that cannot be increased, which is a lower density than most commercial printers’ support.
What can you do?
Your manuscript is formatted with carefully selected images and Kindle Direct Publishing‘s previewer confirms everything is in place.
However, the images look different when viewing the proof. Those in colour, or containing shades of grey have added white-space. This is typically shown as circles of black ink surrounded by white-space. Why is that?
Simple answer: Halftone.
Below, a table demonstrating the effect of converting images in various states to halftone. Note, these were generated using a filter, so the actual look and feel on paper will vary.
| Original | Halftone | |
|---|---|---|
| Colour |  |  |
| Greyscale |  |  |
| Black and White |  |  |
| Grey and White |  |  |
All emojis designed by OpenMoji – the open-source emoji and icon project. License: CC BY-SA 4.0
Your options are straightforward:
Microsoft Word places a section’s Page 1 on the right side (Print Preview) for manuscripts. The application also resists attempts to push it to the left and may insert blank pages into the manuscript.
To override, consider:
Breaks create divisions within a manuscript. Two reasons are:
Breaks are preferred over the insertion of empty lines. The latter creates a cascading effect, which is difficult to manage in large manuscripts. I.e., End up with chapters starting at random points on a page.
Both types of breaks can be inserted under the Page Layout ribbon.
(more…)Print Layout is ideal for formatting manuscripts for publishing. However, what we see differs from reality. That’s where Print Preview comes into play, because it confirms the layout prior to submitting to the printer/publisher.
(more…)This tutorial covers methods of approximating Text messaging in Ebooks and print. The solutions outlined below use tools that are readily available.
