Writing an E-Book or Other Downloadable Publication? Here’s Three Tips They Never Taught Me In School

In the last decade there has been an increase in the use of digital reports to convey information. Many things that were once books and pamphlets are now e-books, e-flyers, or 700-page PDF reference documents that are posted to websites or shared by email. As I grow in my career, I find myself referring more to these types of documents every day. I have come to realize that it is important to understand how to create these documents myself so I can be heard online as well. That is why today we are going to look at some tools in Microsoft Word that you might not have learned in school that help when writing an e-book or other downloadable publication.

Tip #1: Fields

Something I did not discover until recently was that Microsoft Word has this feature called fields which you can find on the insert tab. Filter used to define something in the document. It could be the title, author, company, or many other things. the most useful feature that I found so far by using field is creating a title for the document on the cover page and using that field in the header and footer of each page so if I change the title of my document it will dynamically update. Another cool thing you can do with this is maintain a template with all the fields in the right place is so you don't have to rework your document every time you want to write a new publication. Once that is done you can simply type in your title and other information that will automatically populate wherever you want it to in the document. 

Tip #2: Header and Footer

Outside the regular bounds of the Microsoft Word document are the header and footer, which is the top and bottom of the page. Microsoft has programmed these areas to have special characteristics so that they copy onto each page within the section. You can use some of the tools they provide you to populate page numbers, add other fields (see tip #1), add images, and more!

Tools for Headers & Footers

In formal report creation such as a company’s financial statements or an internal business report, this feature is commonly used for page numbers and two relay key messages on every page such as "for internal use only" or "the accompanying notes to financial statements are an integral part of these financial statements." Personally, I believe this feature is underutilized because it can also be used to help brand a document with a logo or images to make the page looks like more than just a wall of text. While logos and images may not be appropriate for every setting, they can certainly be a differentiator where it matters. In any circumstance, adding the appropriate information to your headers and footers will make a difference!

Tip #3: Justified Text Alignment

Justified text is a tool that I use every day in the professional world and was never taught once in school. This is the fourth alignment tool on the home tab and it makes it so texts on a given line will start at the very left most point an end of the very rightmost point if you can fill that space. Microsoft Word will automatically space the words so that there is an even space between each word between the first and the last in the line. Here is an example of what it looks like: 

Text Without Justified Alignment

Text With Justified Alignment

While the difference showed here is only slightly noticeable, it gets much more apparent over longer paragraphs and multiple pages. Justifying text in a Word document makes it look much cleaner. When you combine this setting with proper text wrapping and proper tables you have all that you need to create an e-book.

Keep in mind that if you are just writing a blog like this one, these tips will not be as helpful because you are publicizing on the web page and not a downloadable document. If you are the type to only post online, I highly suggest you look in to publicizing a downloadable document like an e-book. The format is excellent for quick reference that your readers can keep on their hard drive or in the cloud. Interested in seeing what it might look like? Look at our simple guide to intercompany transactions!

As always, we hoped you learned something today! If there is a specific topic in business or finance that you would like to learn about, send us an email at scalefinancialeducation@gmail.com and we will do our best to teach you for free!