Frequently Asked Questions

bookow.com provides a simple and quick way to generate print-ready PDF files and e-book files from your Word Document manuscript.

The PDFs are properly typeset, which means they will look a lot better than just saving your manuscript as a PDF file from within Word (or other word processor software). You can select the size you need for your print publication and download a file for your ebook version.

The files produced by bookow.com adhere to the standards required by POD (Print On Demand) services such as KDP, IngramSpark and Lulu.

You can see what bookow.com does by viewing our tutorial or the sample books

bookow.com has an automated service that uses our very special and very clever software. You just upload your Word file, choose a few settings and you can instantly download your PDF and e-book files.

You can change your trim (page) size, change settings such as where you want the page numbers printed, change fonts, all from within bookow.com, and instantly download a new PDF and see how it looks.

For complicated layouts, we also provide a custom service. Find out more here

The automated service is only US$80.00 for books with no images and US$120 for books with images. For complex designs and layouts, such as poetry, cookbooks or text books, you can use our custom design service which starts at US$300.

Yes, you can! You can use the service for free, but the PDF will have a watermark. Once you make the payment you can download a copy without the watermark.

The preview file will be the same as what you will get when you pay just with the watermark. That way you can see exactly how your book will look, you can make changes and preview different options.

You can download the pdf file for each title as many times as you require both in the preview watermarked version and after the payment is made.

Many things, for example - Take a look at a paragraph of your manuscript in Word, or whichever word processor program you use. If you have the text justified, you'll notice that some lines have large gaps between words and some lines have small gaps. In fact, there is no consistency from one line to the next.

If you generate a PDF using a word processor it will look exactly as it does in Word, with all those loose and tight spaces.

Now take a look at any book you have lying around. See how the gaps between words are consistent? bookow.com will do that for you. It's one of the differences between a professionally laid out book and a typical self-published book.

Download the bookow.com Word document template file. This gives you an idea of how you need to set out your book. Watch the bookow.com tutorial video to start the process for preparing your manuscript to be uploaded to bookow.com.

If you make changes to the word document version of your mansucript you can upload your new version of the manuscript and you can instantly download a new PDF.

You can preview your book in different sizes, trial different fonts and font sizes. Make your selection and then download the PDF. Download your file, save it to your computer.

Open your PDF using Adobe Reader (free to install) and set the view to be Show Cover Page in Two Page View. This will make sure you are viewing the pages on the correct side the title will be on the right hand side.

Once you have paid for your title and downloaded your PDF from bookow.com without the watermark login to your preferred Print On Demand Service and follow their steps to upload the file.

If you cannot find the answer amongst these tips and tricks you can contact the bookow.com team by emailing

info at bookow dot com

Yes, bookow.com will create files for kindle and other e-book readers for you as part of the package. You can do this by selecting the automated service for books with no images and uploading your manuscript.

If your manuscript has lots of tables, lists, or other special formatting requirements, we have a custom service that starts at US$300.00. Contact the bookow.com team via email at

info at bookow dot com

. Please provide an overview of your preferred specifications and attach a copy of your manuscript to allow the bookow.com team to provide a quote.

You can purchase your ISBN from the service provider in your region which you can find through https://www.isbn-international.org/

The final page number of your PDF will differ from your Word document. bookow.com cannot provide a final page count until you upload your manuscript and make a selection for the font and font size. Once you have your page count you can design your cover. Download your cover template from bookow.com here

bookow.com can help you format your book for print or ebook with the auto format service or if your layout is more complex they can help you with your custom job. bookow.com also has an ISBN-13 Bookland Barcode Generator, ISBN-13 Hyphenator and KDP Cover Template Generator you can find these services here

You should include the main body of your mansucript in your Word file. Name each of your chapters and set them to a Heading 1 style

Check for any hidden formatting that may cause an error do this by turning on Word's "show hidden characters" feature and opening the Navigation Pane. Check that there are no blank lines marked as Heading 1. You can remove these by deleteing them or changing them to Default Style.

Check that there are no soft returns in your manuscript, these will appear as a small bent blue arrow at the end of a line. Delete any accidential soft-returns and replace them with a hard-return by pressing Enter.

You will enter your title and other front matter into a form in bookow.com and this will be formatted for you. Login to start the process or learn more about the automated formatting by watching the bookow.com tutorial.

bookow.com responds to the font type and size you select. If you would like to control where the titles break over the line, place a / or a soft return (Shift + Enter) where it should go to the next line.

In your Word file, where you want a scene break, on a line on its own enter the following in plain text (not centered, not bold, not italic) for a scene break in the PDF and e-book files. Scene breaks are formatted correctly, with the paragraph following the scene break not being indented.

For a blank area scene break type
***0***

For a scene break that uses symbols enter
***107***

This is by design, simply because a lot of manuscripts have blank lines where they aren't intended. For example, some people press the Enter key multiple times near the end of a page in order to move the cursor to the top of the next page. That's not necessary with bookow.com, and in fact those blank lines will be in the wrong spot if we decided to keep them, because the Word file has different margins, page size, etc, to the PDF that bookow.com generates.

So, we have to ignore all those blank lines in the manuscript.

In those places where you really do want a blank line (and it's not a scene break), then type
BOOKOWVSPACE
on a line on its own in your manuscript.

For basic formatting of images you can select the "books with images" auto format option. Rename your photo files to be in the format image1.jpg In your Word document enter this text where you would like the image located enter this text
[[image1.jpg]]

Upload your Word document to bookow.com and send all of your jpeg files to the bookow.com team via WeTransfer, Dropbox or GoogleDrive. They will process the files and notify you when you can preview your PDF.

For more complex formatting contact the bookow.com team to arrange a quote for a custom job.

The images you send through to the bookow.com team should be the highest quality you can send. The team will resize them as required. You can send the files via WeTransfer, Dropbox or GoogleDrive

Part titles will appear on their own page. You can give Parts a title or just number them. To do this you need to format them in the following way.

For parts that will include text in the part name, place :: at the beginning and make the line Heading 1 style. For example:

::The Beginning of the Story

For parts you wish to only be the Part Number, set the line to Heading 1 Style and place :0: (i.e. a colon, the number 0, and another colon) at the beginning and write out the text. For example:

:0:PART I
:0:PART II

To indicate the position of a block quote section, in your manuscript on a line on its own before the quote you need to enter BOOKOWSTARTBLOCKQUOTE and in your manuscript on a line on its own after the quote you need to enter BOOKOWENDBLOCKQUOTE

Make sure these lines are not formatted in any way.

For example:

BOOKOWSTARTBLOCKQUOTE
You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy.
BOOKOWENDBLOCKQUOTE

If you preview your PDF and it comes out with an error check your block quotes. Did you put the code on a line on its own? Did it have any formatting? Do you have the start and the end command of the quote?

Text leading is line spacing. You will find this as part of your options about text font and size for your print PDF. bookow.com has defaults set that are reasonable so you can leave the setting as it.

If you downloaded the preview PDF and it "stopped" and doesn't have all of your pages that means that bookow.com found an error. The first thing to do is check any special bookow.com commands you might have added in. Does it have an opening and closing? Did they need to be on a line on their own? Did they accidentially get formatted?

Once you have checked and changed these, upload your manuscript and download a preview again. If the error is still occurring please contact the bookow.com team so they can assist to diagnose the problem.