Your novel is done: 80,000 words, 32 chapters, six months of work. Now you have to get it out of your writing software and turn it into a readable file, a PDF you can send to an agent, print for your beta readers or enter in a contest, and that's often where the trouble starts.
The export problem
Most writers work in Word or Google Docs, then choose "Save as" and "PDF." The resulting file is indeed a PDF, but it doesn't have the quality of a publishing document: footnotes spill over, numbering goes wrong, typography stays approximate, and the table of contents only works if you remembered to use heading styles.
It's a bit like sending a printer a photo taken with your phone: the result exists, but it doesn't look like a book.
Two ways to produce a PDF
There are two very different methods for generating a PDF.
Direct printing
Most word processors produce the PDF by "printing" the document as it appears on screen. The method is quick and simple, but the result inherits every limitation of the display engine:
- hyphenation is approximate, and words get split in the wrong places;
- footnotes can spill onto the next page for no good reason;
- justification creates white "rivers" in the text;
- widows and orphans, the lines left stranded at the top or bottom of a page, aren't handled.
Typesetting with LaTeX
In 1978, the mathematician Donald Knuth, who found the typography of the scientific papers of his day ugly, created TeX, a typesetting system. In the mid-1980s, Leslie Lamport built LaTeX on top of it, making it much easier to use, and forty years later this pair remains a benchmark for quality typography.
Your text is first converted into LaTeX code, then an engine (pdflatex, xelatex or lualatex) typesets it to produce the PDF. That engine handles:
- hyphenation, following the rules of each language;
- widows and orphans, to avoid stranded lines;
- footnotes, correctly paginated even when they run over several pages;
- justification, with Knuth and Plass's line-breaking algorithm;
- ligatures (fi, fl, ff) and careful kerning;
- the bibliography, formatted in the chosen style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).
The difference is visible to the naked eye, since a PDF typeset with LaTeX looks like a printed book, while a PDF exported from Word keeps the look of an office document.
What your PDF should contain
Whether you're sending it to an editor or an agent, or preparing to self-publish, your PDF should include:
Front matter
- a title page, with the title, the author's name, and possibly the publisher and ISBN;
- a dedication, if you wish;
- an epigraph, meaning an opening quotation, if you wish;
- a table of contents, generated automatically with clickable links.
The body
- numbered chapters with their titles;
- running heads, for example the author's name on the left and the chapter title on the right;
- page numbers;
- correctly paginated footnotes.
Back matter
- a bibliography, where relevant, formatted in the chosen style;
- acknowledgments, if you wish;
- an author bio, if you wish.
The standard format for submitting a manuscript
For a submission to an editor or agent, one format serves as a reference almost everywhere:
- font: Times New Roman at 12 points, or Courier New at 12 points;
- line spacing: double;
- margins: 1 inch (2.5 cm) on all four sides;
- indent: 0.5 inch (1.25 cm) at the start of each paragraph;
- header: the author's name and the page number;
- page size: Letter in North America, A4 in Europe.
Always check each editor's or agent's guidelines, since some have their own requirements, and it's this plain format, designed to be annotated, that they usually expect rather than a book layout. LaTeX typesetting comes into its own for printed copies for your beta readers, for a contest that asks for a polished PDF and, of course, for self-publishing.
Other formats
Depending on what you're aiming for, other formats can be useful.
DOCX (Word): many editors, especially in French-language publishing, ask for this format because they want to annotate and comment directly in the document. Send it along with the PDF, which doesn't replace it.
EPUB: this is the standard format for e-books. If you self-publish on Amazon KDP, Kobo or Apple Books, you'll need one, and since the text adapts to the screen size, its layout has nothing in common with a PDF's.
HTML: it's useful if you publish online, on a blog, on Wattpad or on a writing platform, and it keeps the structure of the text (headings, paragraphs, links) without imposing a fixed layout.
Markdown: it's the easiest format to move from one tool to another, plain text with light markup, ideal for archiving or importing elsewhere.
Exporting in Extypis
Extypis's export assistant works in three steps.
Step 1, the details: title, author, publisher, ISBN, copyright notice and citation style, meaning everything that will appear on the title page and in the document's properties.
Step 2, content and layout: you choose which sections to include (dedication, epigraph, preface, appendices, bibliography), you can export only finished sheets, you pick the document's font and you reorder sections by dragging them.
Step 3, the download: you click the format you want. The PDF is typeset with LaTeX on the server, and within seconds you get a publishing-quality document. The other formats (DOCX, EPUB, HTML, Markdown) are also available.
What Extypis does for you:
- a clickable table of contents;
- correctly paginated footnotes;
- a bibliography formatted in the chosen style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.);
- a cover with an image, automatically cropped to a 2:3 ratio;
- handling of widows and orphans;
- front matter and appendices placed in the right order.
A question of quality
On screen, the difference between a basic PDF export and LaTeX typesetting rarely jumps out. Print both, and you'll see more even justification, correct word breaks, footnotes that land in the right place, and a whole that breathes like a real book.
Your text stays the same from one file to the other, but the reader holding the printed version reads it in much better conditions, and it's often the first thing they notice.
Hubert Giorgi
Author
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