Ken Evoy and Neil Tarvin on E-Book PDF Page Formatting

Just what font size and page format is best for an e-book? I posed this question to two e-book experts:

I can see why Adobe eBook Reader suggests pages 6 x 9 inches, though I acknowledge Neil's criticism of this, since it wastes so much blank paper when printed out.

However, there seems to be a built-in conflict for reading 8-1/2 x 11" format e-books on computer screens that have a horizontal orientation. Problem -- it's difficult to read the type unless you have a fair magnification. But in this case you have to vertically scroll to the bottom of the page to read the whole page.

In your expert opinion, what type size is adequately large so people can read the entire page without scrolling? Or is that a concern for you.

Ken Evoy, author of Make Your Site Sell! and developer of Site Build It! (http://sales.sitesell.com) writes:

I think the answer is determined by the age-old question, "What's your customer going to do with it?"

6 x 9 format never entered my mind "way back when" when I first thought about format for Make Your Site Sell!. I agree with Neil -- too many people like to print and that's a lot of wasted margin! On the other hand, if it's meant to be used purely online, heavily dependent on PDF functionality for online purposes, 6 x 9 could be fine.

However, our books are used as online references, with tons of interlinking, both within volumes and out to the Net. AND we also recommend printing 2-up on both sides (using a utility like FinePrint), since it's also a good idea to just flat-out read the book -- and monitors are just not good to read entire books upon.

So we went 8.5" x 11", 12 pt, non-serif, lots of white space and graphics since it's so painful to read onscreen. Here's how we elect to SHOW our PDF books...

The result is a nice clean, centered presentation.

As you can see, vertical scrolling is not a concern -- users don't mind vertical scrolling (don't make them scroll horizontally, though!). I suppose you might get tired of it if you're going to read 100 pages online, but really -- do your eyes, neck, and back a favor and print that out and read it offline! :-)

We've sold over 100,000 copies and hundreds of thousands of free copies of our PDF Masters Courses, etc. People love the clean, easy read, and actually ask for our "formula" (basically, what I note above) for how we present such a clean, clear format. So we're pretty comfortable, after 5 years, with this approach.

All the best,
Ken

Neil G. Tarvin, professional e-book designer and author of Word E-Book Templates and The "But I'm Not an Artist" Guide to E-book Design (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/tarvin1.htm).

I agree virtually 100% with Ken on this one. There are just a couple of points I do a bit differently.

Default line spacing, when imported from Word, is too tight. Line spacing needs to be at least 2 to 3 points larger than the point size of the type. In general, I use 12 or 13 point type, but type size itself should be gauged to the target reader. For example, though we are mostly concerned with net-related subjects, there are a whole lot of ebooks being done for other markets with different requirements. In general, an ebook targeted for those over 50 or under 12 should be in a slightly larger type size, and it's best to avoid serif typefaces. Line spacing should also be adjusted, and lines should not be fully justified, but set ragged right (flush left) to make it easier to follow the copy.

For screen reading, I almost exclusively use a page size of 8.5 x 11. My settings are virtually the same as Ken uses, with the exception that I usually set the page to "single page - continuous" - mainly because I'm one of those readers who tends to keep scrolling, and those page jumps always make me miss something, or I have to scroll back.

For very short ebooks, I often use a 7 (or 7.5) x 9 format - this is because I will frequently use a presentation mode (very much like PowerPoint, but it's PDF) for short ebooks to make them more dynamic and give them more impact. In this mode, 6 is just too narrow and 7 - 7.5 gives a better balance on the screen.

Cutting to the chase, it simply means that you have to take a number of factors into consideration - screen vs. print, the target market, interactivity between various volumes, etc.

Good design should be almost invisible to the reader - they'll just know it "fits." (And, believe me - they certainly know when it *doesn't!" <smile>)

Neil