Can AI format my book?

Yes, AI can help with book formatting, but no, it cannot take a manuscript and turn it into a professionally formatted, print ready book all on its own. It is a new, increasingly powerful tool in every designer's toolkit, but it is still no substitute for a professional book formatter.

Someone has to understand the manuscript

When it comes to manuscripts, we've really seen it all. MS Word files with hundreds of direct formatting styles, sections from different contributors bolted together, 50 different heading styles that are actually all H2s, pages of text included as images. We've received a puzzle book with codes and hidden messages deliberately mistyped to form clues. We've had invisible books where it turned out all the text was white. A 300 page novel written without a single return key and only the space bar.

AI is very handy for repetitive stuff and spotting patterns. The snag is spotting something odd and knowing it's wrong are two very different things. One strange bit of formatting might be there for a reason. Something copied 50 times might simply be wrong all 50 times. It's so important not to go and helpfully "fix" something the author very much meant to do.

Someone has to make the design decisions

Even once you've worked out what the author intended, there are still plenty of decisions to make. Looking at a manuscript will never tell you that a very wide technical book would read better in two columns, that a contents page is so detailed it's scaring people rather than making things clearer, or that a chunk of side material is so fascinating it deserves its own style.

We once received a complex technical text to be set at US Letter size. With text running right across that width, the lines were far too long to read comfortably. But make the type bigger and suddenly the page count was far too high. The answer was two columns. Easier to read, more efficient with the space, and diagrams could comfortably span the full width.

If you want more chat on all the decisions involved, our guide to what is book formatting? runs through the process top to bottom.

The book has to work in print

However good the pages look on screen, eventually somebody has to print them, trim them, bind them and hold them in their hands. That now requires a whole other set of decisions.

Looking at a PDF on screen, an inside margin might look massive. Bind the book and suddenly a chunk of it has disappeared into the stitching. In a similar way, a photo that looks ultra sharp on screen can look seriously pixelated when blown up full page. The spectacular looking recipe book isn't quite so useful when you realize its glued binding means it won't lie flat on your recipe stand.

We've seen all this first hand. We've been to Lightning Source, stood on the factory floor and watched thousands of books and covers coming off the line. We've asked the operators for tips and heard stories about the quirky issues they've seen. Seeing what actually happens to a book after that PDF leaves your computer really changes the way you design it in the first place.

The printer can check a file is technically correct, but that's not the same as confirming the finished book will actually look good.

AI doesn't replace collaboration

But using better tools doesn't remove the need for the author and designer to work together. We might suggest moving a section, ask for a better quality image or show you two completely different ways of handling something. You might tell us there is a reason it has been done that way, or that one option simply doesn't feel right for your book.

You know what you're trying to say. We know what can be done with it on the page and what will happen when those pages are printed and bound.

But as a tool, AI is great

So asking if AI can format a book is a bit like asking whether InDesign can. Adobe InDesign has now been used to format books for decades. But nobody expects that tool to go make all the decisions by itself, do they? What really matters is who's operating the tool. They need to know what to look for, what buttons to press, what choices to make. They're the ones that need to know what good really looks like.

AI is the same. It has its moments of proving incredibly useful, saving time on repetitive jobs and letting us mock up all sorts of design options much faster. Faced with 300 pages of inconsistent headings, for example, we'd be pretty daft not to use it. And we've always been a technology led business, so AI is simply another welcome tool in the box.

If you'd like us to apply our toolset to your manuscript, please visit our book formatting services page to find out more.