Previewing your pages: Print, Ebook and Manuscript views and automatic page polish

The page preview shows your book as it will come out. You can use it to check layout while you work, before you generate the final files.

In the Formatter, the preview is on the right of the window. In Studio, click Format in the top bar.

The three views

The preview has three views. Choose the one you want from the preview's controls:

• Print: two-page spreads, the way the printed book will look.
• Ebook: phone-sized screens, the way the ebook will look on an e-reader.
• Manuscript: your book in submission manuscript format. To set this up, choose Book → Manuscript Format…. That also switches the preview to Manuscript.

Each view shows the same text. Only the layout changes.

Moving around the preview

The preview follows the chapter you select in the chapter list. To jump the other way, click any page in the preview. Pendrilo moves you to the chapter that page belongs to.

To make the pages larger or smaller on screen, choose View → Preview page size. This changes only how the preview looks. It doesn't change your book.

How Pendrilo sets your printed pages

Pendrilo polishes the printed pages for you, the way a professional typesetter would. You don't need to set anything for this. These are the rules it follows:

• Facing pages end on the same line.
• No single line of a paragraph is left alone at the top of a page.
• No lone short word sits on a paragraph's last line.
• No subheading is left at the foot of a page.
• A chapter's last page has at least five lines.
• A scene break that falls at the top or bottom of a page is shown, so it doesn't get lost.

These rules apply to the printed pages. In the Ebook view, the text reflows to fit each reader's screen, so the page breaks you see there are not the printed ones.

Checking the result

When you generate the book with Generate Book, the Your book is ready window reports the Page polish result. A result such as "Every page ends evenly" means the rules were applied to every page.

The status bar's Checks count also catches some layout problems. For example, it flags a chapter that ends with only a few lines on its last page. Click Show beside an item to go to the chapter where you can fix it.

If a page in the preview looks wrong, check it against the finished print PDF before you upload. The PDF is the file your printer will receive.