If you've finished your manuscript,
you must be so excited to get it formatted and ready to publish. Atticus makes this super easy,
and whether you've written your book in Atticus itself, or imported
a manuscript from Word or Google Docs, we'll go through all the main formatting
and layout features in this tutorial. So let's jump right in. When you first open a book in Atticus,
you'll notice that every book has a front matter section
separated from the body section. New books will begin with an automatically
generated title page, copyright page, and table of contents, and you can add
additional pages as your book requires. Atticus auto generates a title page
using the information you set in the book details. But if you don't like the basic design,
you can delete this version and create one of your own using the convert
to full page image option. You'll also find a copyright page
template in the front matter. If you have your own, you can delete the text that is included
and insert your preferred details. you click the three dots beside the Add
chapter button, you can even choose alternate versions of this template
to suit your specific needs. Finally, Atticus auto generates
a Table of Contents, or TOC, that will update
as you add, move or change any of the content
and formatting of your book. The TOC is one page you can't delete. It's necessary and specifically formatted
to meet e-book publishing criteria. If you click the three dots
beside the title on the left navigation panel,
you can choose to include in none, which will remove the page itself
from the content of your book. But that navigational TOC
will always export in the digital epub version of your book,
which is mandatory. Just as a note,
Atticus cannot support internal links that have been programed
in outside programs, including Word. So it's always best if you delete the TOC
from your source document before importing it. Many books include additional pages
in their front matter, such as blurbs, a dedication page,
maybe an epigraph or prologue. If you click the three dots
beside the add chapter button. Atticus has a variety of presets
that come with special formatting that you can further
adjust using the chapter formatting settings available for each page. We've provided a brief description
of how the page type is normally used and formatted
with each preset for your convenience. You'll want to remove this placeholder
text before adding your own content. We also have an entire tutorial
dedicated to preset layouts for front and back pages
that you can check out after this one. If you've imported front matter pages
with your content and you find it in the body section, you can just drag
and drop it into the front matter wherever you'd like it
to appear in your book. There may be some situations
in which a certain page type is perfect for the e-book version of your book,
but you don't want to include it in the PDF
copy going to print or vice versa. If you click the three dots beside
any page in either your front or back matter, you can choose to include in all e-book only, print only, or none. Industry
standards required the standard pagination of your book to begin with the first page
in the body section. For this reason, Atticus will number all the pages
in your front matter using Roman numerals. If they appear
after the table of contents. Any pages that appear before the TOC
won't have any pagination at all. The body section of your book
will include all your standard chapters and pages, as well as the back matter. If you're importing your book into Atticus, you'll
first want to reference our tutorial to help you prepare your manuscript
in order to make the process as efficient as possible. That will be linked down
below in the description Once imported into Atticus,
or if you're writing your book in the program,
you can add or chapters and scenes as needed to add a new chapter, click the Add chapter button
at the bottom of the left navigation pane. You can drag and drop chapters and Atticus will automatically adjust
the numbering sequence for you. If you'd like to add a scene
within a chapter, place your cursor where you'd like the scene break to occur and click the asterisk
icon from the toolbar. If you are importing a manuscript
to create a scene, break in your docx file before you import it,
use three asterisks in a row with no other formatting
or styling applied. Atticus will automatically convert this
to a scene break when you bring it into the program. If you look to the left navigation panel, any chapter that includes a scene
break will have a little arrow. When you hover over the title. Click the title of the chapter
to open the scenes. The first section will automatically
become scene one and all subsequent scenes will be named accordingly and adjust
automatically if you move them around. The scene titles will not export
or show in your book in any way. It's for your reference only. If you'd like your scene to have a title,
consider adding a subheading
to the body section in the scene itself. If you're clicked on the main chapter title,
you can work on the chapter as a whole. If you click on one of the scenes,
you can work on just that scene. You can also drag
and drop scenes within a chapter or even elsewhere in your book
To remove a scene. You can remove the scene break
by clicking the trashcan icon to the top right of the placeholder
image in the main chapter writing section. This will combine the scene
with the previous portion of the chapter. It will not delete the content itself. If you would like to start a new page
within the same chapter, perhaps after a scene ends
or after you've inserted an image, you can use the page break feature
from the writing toolbar. This will not start a new chapter, but
it will start the next piece of content at the top of a fresh page
in your print book. This will be honored in eBooks
where the reader is set to flip pages, but it will be ignored in ebooks
that scrolls through the pages without any interruptions or breaks. Because it's a page within a chapter, it will have the header
and footer included on the next page. If you decide you'd like to split
a chapter into multiple chapters rather than scenes, place your cursor
in front of the sentence. You want to be the first sentence
in the next chapter and then click the split chapter
icon from the toolbar. If you decide you need to combine
chapters, you can click the three dots beside the first chapter title in the left
navigation pane and choose merge with next chapter. This will bring the following chapter
into the end of this first chapter. The chapter title of the second Merge
chapter will be converted into a subheading automatically,
which you'll likely want to update. If you click the three dots beside the Add
chapter button at the bottom of the left navigation pane,
you'll see full page image as an option. These will insert between any page
or chapter within your book and it can be set to show your image
with full bleed. If your book uses parts,
you can create them in Atticus very easily with your book open in the left Navigation
pane, right click on the title of the first chapter or page
you want to be included in the first part. Choose. Create part. Atticus will create a new part with
the chapter selected nested within it. You can set a part title and subtitle
as you'd like. You can then scroll down the navigation
panel and repeat with the the rest of the parts. Once you have all your parts set up,
you can drag and drop any remaining chapters
into their respective parts. If you decide you no longer
want a part in your book, you can click the X next to the part
title in the left navigation panel. Atticus will ask if you want to keep
children or delete children. Children is formatting
jargon for the chapters within that part. If you'd like to delete all the pages
in chapters currently nested in that part and you want to get rid of the content,
choose delete children. If you want to keep the content,
be very careful to choose Keep Children and Atticus will place them back
in the normal organization of your book. If you're creating a boxset, anthology
or any type of publication that requires you to separate the content
into multiple volumes within a single book, you can do
so using the volumes feature in Atticus. This was primarily designed
to make the creation of Boxsets as easy as possible,
and Atticus allows you to combine multiple books within your account
into one single publish-ready file. From your home dashboard,
you can click Create a new box set from the list of books
provided. Choose which books
you'd like to include in your new box set. you can click in the order
you want them to appear in your book. And Atticus will number this order for you
so that you can see it. Press next and then enter the details
for your book set. All of your books will be imported
into the body section, but each of them will have their own front matter as well as a front matter
section for the book as a whole. if you happen to have imported in the incorrect order,
you can drag and drop the entire volume as well as each page
or chapter within each value. You can also add back matter
outside the volumes by adding new pages to the end of your left navigation panel
or dragging and dropping pages out of a volume and into the bottom
of the navigation panel. If you've written your manuscript
in Word or Google Docs and haven't yet formatted any of the volumes in Atticus,
you can also combine them into a single docx file
and upload it as a new book in Atticus and then separate the volumes
from within the program. You'll want to follow the same guidelines
for preparing your manuscript for importing, as with a single book
from your Atticus dashboard, click upload. Find the file with your boxset
and fill in the details as usual. Again, Atticus will import all the content
into the body section if you've imported front matter pages
designed to be in the front matter of the entire boxset
you can move those into place first. Next you can find the first chapter or book title of the first book
and click it. Scroll down the left navigation panel
to find the last chapter or page in the first book. Press and hold the shift
button as you click that page. This should highlight
all the chapters in the first book. You can then right click on the first highlighted page
or chapter and choose. Create a volume. Atticus will create a separate
front matter section for this book. You can click where it says volume
to fill in the volume details and move or remove
any front matter pages as needed. You can then repeat for all
the remaining books in your boxset. Once your manuscript is in Atticus,
with all your chapters scenes, parts and volumes
properly separated. You'll want to start adding your chapter
and Page level formatting settings. Click formatting from the top center
and choose a theme from the options. You can either create a new theme
or customize one of the Atticus preset themes. We have a separate tutorials
that walks you through all the different options
available to create your custom theme, which will be linked in the description
box below. Once you have a theme set
you can adjust the settings of individual chapters
and pages further in the writing editor. and to the right of the chapter title
you'll see a gear icon which will open the Chapter Options menu. And here you can set additional
preferences for this individual chapter. For print versions of your book,
you may want each chapter to begin on a certain side of your book. To set this, you can click the three dots
beside the title body and choose. Begin on either
side, right side, or left side. If you only want certain pages
to begin on specific sides, click the three dots beside
each individual page or chapter title. If your book doesn't use numbered
chapters, you can choose to remove the numbering
from the entire book by clicking the three dots beside the title body
and uncheck numbered again. You can also remove the numbering
from specific chapters by clicking the three dots
beside those individual chapter or page titles and unchecking
Numbered there. This will interrupt the number sequence, but ensure that the rest of your chapters
remain in proper order. If you later decide you do want it
numbered, clicking numbered again
will reset the numbering automatically. Atticus offers
further content stylization options similar to standard word
processing programs. You can also add advanced features
such as images within your content, call out boxes, text messaging,
formatting and social profiles. There are so many options,
we cover them in their own tutorial, guiding you through text and paragraph
styling options and Atticus,
which will also be linked below. Once you have your chapters
laid out and designed as you like them, you can now add back matter. Just as you added the front matter,
you can click the three dots beside the add chapter
button at the bottom of your left panel and choose the type of back matter
you'd like to develop. If you have any pages that you plan on
reusing in multiple books such as and also by page,
you can create a master page to be saved within Atticus
and used across your account. Now that you have the layout locked down
for your book, you're going to want to check out this
tutorial over here to set your own custom theme for your book,
and then you'll be ready to publish. I'm so excited for you. I hope you're having a great time
getting your book published ready.
