How to design a book in InDesign

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To us at The Book Designers, the layout of the pages inside a book is just as important as its cover design. After all, the pages are what people experience as they read the book. This tutorial provides a basic step-by-step process for designing and laying out a book that's driven by its text.

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Over the following steps we'll show you how to design a simple text-driven book using InDesign, which is part of Adobe's Creative Cloud software. However, this process can also be applied to more dynamic layouts, as it covers the basics of flowing in and formatting text for a book layout.

01. Plan the layout

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Plan your book layout first. Where are the table of contents, copyright page, introductions, preface, forewords and so on going to be located? If you're uncertain, ask your client or refer to books already in print to see what the standard is. 

Make sure the text you receive is supplied without hard formatting, otherwise you might spend a lot of time stripping out italics, bold and so on – over-formatted text distracts readers. Now open InDesign and go to 'File > New Document'.

02. Set properties

The inside margins need to be large enough to accound for the gutter

Set your document properties. Choose Facing Pages, set the trim size and margins, and set the columns to one. Pay attention to the inside margin as when your book is bound at the spine it will take in some of this paper. We suggest inside margins of at least one inch. 

We're working in inches – ctrl+right-click on the ruler to change the units you work in. Deselect the lock icon in your margin settings so you can set each – top, bottom, inside and outside – individually.

03. Drag guides

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You can drag guides for your layout off the rulers, just click and pull down or across. Use the Pages panel to see your layout in thumbnails and to access and apply master page items. To do this, click on the A-Master icon at the top of the Pages panel.

04. Create text boxes

Once you access your master page, you can create text boxes to fit your margins as well as set up any page elements like page numbers and folio items. Whatever you do on your master pages will be applied throughout the rest of the document. 

Create two text boxes using your Type tool and position them within your margins.

05. Link pages

Adjust your settings so the text flows from page to page

Next, using your Direct Selection tool, select the text box on the left and locate the small square on the lower-right corner. Click this and you will see your cursor change to a text flow icon. 

With this text flow cursor icon, click on the right-hand text box and see the cursor change to a link cursor icon. This enables your document pages to link from page to page as you flow your text in.

Next page: page numbers, flowing in text and more

06. Page numbers

You can automate page numbering by making a text box and typing in a number wherever you want page numbers to appear in your layout. Select the number you typed, ctrl/right-click on it, and from the pop-up menu that appears select 'Insert special characters > Markers > Current page numbers'. 

You will see the number change to the letter A. This signifies that your page numbers are now applied to all your pages.

07. Populate opening pages

The first few pages need to follow a different format

Now, click on the first page of your document in the Pages panel and you'll see the items you created on your master pages have been applied. The first page is typically a 'half title' page, typically followed by a full title page with the subtitles, and name of the author and publishing house. 

Create these and a table of contents before flowing in the main body copy. To remove master items from a page, cmd/ctrl+shift+click on an item and it will be broken out of the master, then hit Delete.

08. Flow in text

Now flow in the text. cmd/ctrl+Shift+click on the first text box and then press cmd/ctrl+D and select the text file on your hard disk. Your text will flow into the first spread. 

Select the second text box and click on the small box at the lower right corner. Hold Shift and it turns into an Auto-flow cursor icon. Click in the first text box on the next spread, and flow it in to the end of the document.

09. Adjust font

Adjust your fonts using the Character and Paragraph panels

Using your Text Selection tool and Character and Paragraph panels, adjust the font, size, colour and other character attributes that may be needed. Justified text is common for book body text. Your font size should be 10-12pt, with leading 13-15pt. 

Your text should have few hyphens and have an over all 'greyness' to it when viewed with a squinted eye. Good fonts are designed to have ideal kerning pairs but make sure headers, sub-headers, section breaks and drop caps get extra attention for a breathable hierarchy. For kerning tips, check out this article.

10. Tidy up

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You can apply any number of text treatments to your page, as well as import images to flow throughout your text. You can create any number of differently shaped boxes to import images into. 

Using the Text Wrap panel, set a 'runaround' so that text can flow around the images. Once done, export your book for press by packaging your document, saving it as a PDF for print, or ebook or e-pub formats.

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