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Lettering a comic in Panelhouse: importing the script and art, book setup, balloons, checks and exporting files

Panelhouse letters a comic from its script. You bring the finished art and the script, and Panelhouse places every balloon, caption and sound effect. When the lettering is done, it publishes the book as a print PDF, a wraparound cover, a fixed-layout ebook, webtoon strips and a CBZ file for comic reader apps.

This article covers the whole job, from importing your files to saving the finished ones. During the beta, Panelhouse is free and its exports have no watermark.

Import the script and the art

  • 1. Choose Book → Import Script….
  • 2. Next to Script, click Choose… and pick your script, a plain text (.txt) or Fountain file.
  • 3. Next to Art folder, click Choose… and pick the folder that holds your page art. You can leave this blank and add the art later.
  • 4. Choose the Trim size. You can change it later in Book Setup.
  • 5. Tick Right to left (manga) if the book reads right to left.
  • 6. Click Letter the book.

Art files are matched to pages in order, so name them page-1, page-2 and so on. A file named cover becomes the front cover. Art can be PNG, JPEG, TIFF or Photoshop (PSD) files. When the artist has drawn panels, Panelhouse finds them from the gutters and places each panel's lettering inside its panel, in reading order.

If you have no script, add pages with + Page or + Art… above the page strip, or with Book → Add Pages from Art….

Set up the book

Open Book → Book Setup… to check the book's details and layout. It holds:

  • the title, writer, artist, series, issue and publisher, plus the back cover and store description;
  • the Trim size: US comic, graphic novel at 6 × 9 or 7 × 10 inches, album at 8.5 × 11 inches, manga at 5 × 7.5 inches, or your own size;
  • the bleed, safe and spine margins, and the panel gutters and borders;
  • Reading, set to Left to right or Right to left (manga);
  • All capitals, and the Languages list.

The checks flag lettering that falls in the bleed or outside the safe area, so confirm these margins before you letter.

Write the script so Panelhouse can read it

Panelhouse reads a standard comic script:

  • PAGE ONE, PAGE 1 or PAGES TWO-THREE (for a spread) starts a page. PANEL 1 or 1. starts a panel. The description under a panel is kept as a note for the artist and is never printed.
  • NORA: Did you hear that? is a speech balloon. CAPTION: is a caption, and CAPTION (NORA): is a caption in Nora's voice. SFX: KRRRAK is a sound effect.
  • After a speaker's name, (OFF) makes an off-panel balloon, (WHISPER) a whisper, (SHOUT) or (BURST) a shout, (THOUGHT) a thought balloon, and (RADIO), (PHONE) or (TV) a radio balloon.
  • Two lines in a row from one speaker in one panel become connected balloons. A short caption that names a place or a year gets the place-and-time box.

Letter by hand

To add lettering yourself, choose the kind along the top toolbar. Open Balloon to pick Speech, Thought, Whisper, Shout, Radio or Off-panel. Click the page where it goes, and type the words on the right.

To change existing lettering, choose Select and click it. On the Lettering tab, you can:

  • change the kind with Type, and set who is speaking with Speaker (or Narrator for a caption);
  • set Size and Width. By default, a balloon takes the book's size and grows to fit its words;
  • adjust the Tail and how much it bends;
  • use Read earlier and Read later to change the reading order.

Drag a balloon to move it. Drag the round handle to point its tail at the speaker.

Sound effects have their own settings for font, size, fill, outline, bend and tilt.

Book → Styles & Characters… sets the look for the whole book: the dialogue font, size, weight, line spacing and padding, balloon and line colours, a look for each narrator's captions, how new sound effects start, and a balloon style for any character, such as a grey box for a robot.

To reuse a look across a series, choose Book → Save Style Preset… in one book, then Book → Load Style Preset… in the next.

Use Book → Auto-place Lettering on All Pages to lay every panel's lettering out again in reading order.

Pages and panels

Open the Page tab with nothing selected. Each page is either full-page art, where the artist drew the whole page including the panels, or a set of panels, where each panel holds its own picture.

Use Layout… to place a template on a page. The options include Splash, tiers such as Tiers 1-1-1 and Tiers 2-1-2, grids such as Grid 2 × 3, wide-screen strips, and Splash, full bleed, which fills the page to the edge.

With the Panels tool, drag a panel's corners to reshape it. Each panel also has notes for the artist, which are never printed.

Translations

To letter a translation, click Add a language under Languages in Book Setup. The same art gets a separate lettering layer for each language. Pick the language above the page to letter it.

Run the checks

Open the Checks tab. When nothing needs fixing, it says Ready to print. Otherwise it lists problems such as:

  • lettering or panels that are read out of order;
  • lettering smaller than 7 points;
  • lettering in the bleed or outside the safe area;
  • balloons that cover each other;
  • art below 300 DPI, or missing art;
  • missing translations;
  • spelling mistakes (Panelhouse knows your characters' names).

Click Show me under an item to go to the place it's about. Click Check again after you fix something. Book → Check Spelling and Print Readiness runs the same checks from the menu.

Export the files

  • 1. Choose File → Export….
  • 2. Under Print, tick what you need. Interior PDF (pages with bleed, fonts embedded) is for KDP, IngramSpark or a print shop; tick Crop marks for a print shop. IngramSpark needs an even number of pages. Wraparound cover PDF sizes the spine from the page count.
  • 3. Under Digital, tick what you need: a Fixed-layout EPUB for Kindle, Apple Books and Kobo, with tap-to-zoom panels; a CBZ for comic reader apps; an Ebook cover image, a 2560-pixel JPEG for the store page; or a Webtoon strip, 800 pixels wide and sliced for upload. Set the lettering size and the space between panels for the webtoon.
  • 4. If your book has more than one language, choose which one to letter in.
  • 5. Click Folder… to choose where the files go, then click Export.

The lettering in the PDFs stays as real text with sharp lines, and your art is included unchanged. In manga mode, the ebook turns its pages right to left.