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Choosing a theme, adjusting the look and choosing fonts in Styles

The Styles tab controls how your book looks in print and in the ebook. It works the same way in the Formatter and in Studio. In the Formatter, the tabs are at the top of the window. In Studio, click Format in the top bar first. The real typeset pages on the right update as you work.

Choosing a theme

A theme sets the whole look of your book at once: fonts, chapter headings, scene breaks, running heads and more. Pendrilo has 65 themes, sorted by genre.

  • 1. Click the Styles tab.
  • 2. Click a genre to see its themes, or click All to see every theme. The genres are Literary, Thriller, Romance, Mystery, Contemporary, Non-fiction, Children's, Fantasy & Sci-fi, Horror, Historical and Poetry.
  • 3. Click a theme. Each card shows the theme's opening page at your book's trim size, with its name and what it suits. The pages on the right change straight away.

For example, Classic uses Garamond with centered small-caps chapter openings and suits literary and general fiction. Thorn uses display capitals, a three-line drop cap and ruled chapter openings, and suits horror, thrillers and suspense. Try a few on your own chapter before you decide.

If you've already adjusted parts of your current theme, choosing a new theme replaces those adjustments with the new theme's settings. Pendrilo tells you when this happens.

Adjusting part of a theme

Below the themes, the Styles tab has groups you can change one at a time:

  • Your own fonts
  • Chapter headings
  • First paragraph
  • Scene breaks and ornaments
  • Body text
  • Running heads and page numbers
  • Quotes, letters, messages, tables and callouts
  • Pictures

A setting you've changed is marked. To put one setting back to the theme's version, click Reset beside it. To put every setting back, click Reset all … changes at the bottom of the tab.

Choosing fonts

Built-in fonts

Pendrilo includes 14 font families you can use in books you sell. They are licensed under the SIL Open Font License, and they appear in every font list in Styles, such as the body font and the heading font. The families are Alegreya, Andika, Cinzel, Cormorant Garamond, Courier Prime, Crimson Pro, EB Garamond, IM FELL English, Josefin Sans, Libre Baskerville, Lora, Oswald, Playfair Display and Spectral.

You don't need to add any of them. Choose one in the font list for the group you want to change.

Adding your own font

You can also add any font you're licensed to use.

  • 1. Open the Styles tab and find the Your own fonts group.
  • 2. Click Add a font….
  • 3. Choose the font's .ttf or .otf file. If the font family has them, add its italic and bold files too.

An added font appears in every font list in Styles, alongside the built-in fonts. It is saved inside your book file, so it travels with the book when you copy the book to another computer.

Some fonts can't be added. Pendrilo refuses a font whose maker forbids embedding it in a book. To take a font out of your book, click Remove beside it.

If a font has no bold file, the printed book can't show bold text in that font. Checks, in the status bar, warns you about this. Add the bold file, or choose a different font.

Once a font is added, you use it the same way as a built-in font.

Borrowing one part of another theme

Each group starts with a Style from option. Choose another theme there to take only that part of its look, such as its chapter headings, and keep the rest of your current theme. This is useful when you like one theme's chapter openings but want the body text of another.

Common settings to check

These are the settings most authors change first.

  • Chapter headings: the heading style (16 named styles), the chapter number format (Chapter One, Chapter 1, 1, I, or Title only), the alignment, and whether a rule or frame sits around the title. Each chapter can also have a subtitle. Type it in the box under the chapter title in the editor. It prints under the title in a smaller, italic style.
  • First paragraph: whether the first paragraph starts with a drop cap, which can be 2 to 5 lines tall, and whether its opening words are set in small caps or capitals.
  • Scene breaks and ornaments: the scene break style, and the mark used at the end of each chapter.
  • Body text: the body font, text size, line spacing, paragraph indent, justified or ragged-right text, and the space between paragraphs.
  • Running heads and page numbers: what appears on left-hand and right-hand pages (the author, the book title, the chapter title, or nothing), where page numbers sit, and the style of the contents page.

Checking the result

Use the page preview to check your changes. Switch between these views:

  • Print: two-page spreads, as the printed book will look.
  • Ebook: phone screens, as the ebook will look.
  • Manuscript: the book in submission manuscript format.

Pendrilo also adjusts the printed pages automatically. For example, it avoids a single line of a paragraph at the top of a page and keeps a subheading off the foot of a page. You still need to check the first page of a chapter, a page with a scene break and a page with a drop cap. These are the places where spacing problems show up most often.