Mastering Your Word Document Formatting

In our previous blog, we took you through the steps of getting your book started on a Word Document. Now, we’re turning our attention to formatting to ensure your novel is ready for printing.

Utilising features like formatting marks, vertical alignment, and section breaks will make managing and editing your document a breeze, and in this blog, we’ll walk you through these crucial techniques.

How to show formatting marks

Have you ever wondered why your text doesn’t quite look right or why spacing issues seem difficult to fix, no matter what you do? The answer could well be found in the formatting marks. These hidden characters show you exactly how Word is interpreting your document, and revealing them will make it much easier to spot and fix any problems.

Step one:

First, locate the toolbar at the top of your screen and click home. You will see a small button that resembles a paragraph symbol (¶).

Step two:

Clicking this toggles it on and off, revealing formatting marks such as tabs, returns and forced manual returns.

Step three:

If some symbols aren’t showing or you would like to display some additional symbols, then you can do this by navigating to the office button (or File in some newer versions) and selecting ‘Options’. Here, you will be able to customise what marks are visible.

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How to change the vertical alignment of text

Depending on the book you are writing, you might want to adjust the text to align differently from the top of your page. Vertical alignment can be very handy to establish new chapters or sections, but a lot of people will manually press “Enter” a number of times to adjust the text positioning. This is particularly bad formatting and can cause a range of issues later on. Thankfully, Word offers a much cleaner way to control the vertical alignment of your text.

Step one:

Go to the ‘Page Layout’ tab on the top toolbar, and in the bottom right corner of this section, there is a small arrow. Click this to open up the full ‘Page Setup’ menu.

Step two:

In the ‘Page Setup’ menu, click on the ‘Layout’ tab, and you will see the vertical alignment option. You can choose between ‘Top’, ‘Centre’, ‘Justified’ or ‘Bottom’ alignment. ‘Top’ places text at the top of the page and is the default option. ‘Centre’ places it in the middle, ‘Bottom’ at the bottom and ‘Justified’ stretches the text evenly from top to bottom.

Step three:

Once you’ve made your choice and are happy with how it looks, press OK to apply the changes.

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Using section breaks to change vertical alignment on multiple pages

The vertical alignment change in the previous step affects the entire document by default. But what if you want to only apply it to a specific page? That’s where section breaks come in. These help divide your document into different sections, allowing you to apply distinct formatting to each one.

Step one:

First, navigate to the ‘Page Layout’ section at the top and find the ‘Page Breaks’ area. Click on ‘Next Page Section Break’, and this will create a new section starting from the next page. This new section will behave independently in terms of formatting from the previous section, allowing you to create new styles.

Step two:

If there are any unwanted page breaks left over, you can remove them to align your content accordingly.

Step three:

If you want to view the current sections within your Word Document, the easiest way is via headers and footers. Double-click in the footer area of your document, and it will display the section breaks currently in place.

Step four:

Now that your section break is in place navigate back to the ‘Page Layout’ tab and open the ‘Page Setup’ menu. Under ‘Layout’, change the vertical alignment to your preferred option and click ‘Apply To: This Section’.

Step five:

Repeat the process for any other sections in the document where you want to apply different vertical alignments. Be sure to double-check for any stay section or page breaks to maintain clean formatting throughout.

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Looking to print your book?

Do you need further help with printing your book? Our team at Book Printing UK is here to make the process as simple and hassle-free as possible, so contact us today to find out more!