E-book layout vs. print PDF
While e-book design has come a long way, it’s important to remember that your e-book will not look exactly like your print book (except for fixed layout e-books. See below). This is because of the way e-readers display content, as well as the options users have when reading your e-book. A print book created as a .pdf is actually very different from an e-book.
- We simply are not able to control the exact font size and style of your e-book as with a print book, as readers have the option to change these types of settings in their device.
- Readers can even control the line spacing, margin, and whether or not text appears justified on the screen.
- Footnotes will appear at the end of chapters, rather than at the bottom of the page.
- Page breaks and line breaks will “reflow” according to changes in settings or device and may, depending on the reader settings, appear at inappropriate places.
- The e-book format may appear more simplistic than the printed book, but this is okay! People who read e-books expect this — the important part is that all of the text within your e-book is smooth, continuous, and best suited for e-reader display, regardless of device.
- Unlike a .pdf or a print book, the two major e-book formats — KPF and ePub — are designed to allow this level of flexibility.
- For your e-book to take full advantage of an e-reader’s capabilities and for it to be sold through the major e-book retailers, it must be available in one or both of these formats.
Differences between e-book and print book
Here is a quick primer on the differences in formatting for a print book and e-book. First of all, we should say that there is not much difference, but the differences that do exist are important. The following points are dealt with when producing your e-book files; both KPF (for the Kindle reading device) and ePub (for all other e-book reading devices).
- Page breaks established in a print layout will not work the same way in an e-book as the e-book readers allow the reader to determine factors such as font size.
- Spacing between paragraphs and special text items need to be dealt with differently for e-book.
- Table of contents are set up in such a way that they will properly function as links in an e-book. They do not contain page numbers. since font sizes, margins, etc can be changed by the viewer, thereby changing the number of pages, page numbers are irrelevant and not used in e-books.
- E-books should include metadata that is not required in a print book.
- Photo and other image alignment is dealt with very differently for e-books.
- Print books require a high resolution front, spine and back covers. E-books require a lower resolution front cover.
- Separate files must be produced for the print book (PDF), for the Kindle (KPF) and for all other e-book readers (ePub).
- E-books do not handle tables very well, so in some circumstances, tables need to be formatted specially for e-books.
- Books with several heading levels, lists, bullets, indents, etc also need to be created differently for e-books.
- It will take about the same amount of time to format a book only for print as it would to format it only for an e-book.
- The most efficient way of producing both print books and e-books is to first format the book for print, then for the two e-book versions.
- Once a print version is formatted, approximately an additional 20% or so would be required to produce the two e-book files.
Fixed layout e-book
- When it comes to books that rely heavily on design elements or large illustrations or photos such as cookbooks, text books, children’s books, comics, etc., a fixed layout may be the better solution if you want to preserve the qualities of the printed page.
- To put it plainly, the pages of a fixed layout e-book are … fixed! The content — images, text, etc. — will not “flow” across the page if you change your settings, though most devices will allow the reader to zoom in and out.
- Fixed layout is like the digital version of typesetting; you can embed fonts, choose the exact placement of visual elements, etc. The benefit of fixed layout is that the author and the book designer are in complete control of the e-reader experience.
- The drawback with fixed layout is that readers of the e-book do not have any control over the font size etc. They will only be able to zoom in and zoom out.readers lose the ability to resize text, change margins, change spacing, and change fonts.
- Keep in mind that a fixed layout e-book is different from a .pdf file. While the content is not re-flowable, a fixed layout e-book can make use of enhanced interactive features. Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon all support derivations of fixed layout ePUB files.
Please ask us anything you are not sure of. A simple question might save us a lot of time, and save you money.