Even if you use 3Rabbitz Book, you won’t be able to make books with as good qualities as the major publishing companies make. However, as long as you understand the common components for most of books, you can produce books with consistent qualities by investing as little time as possible. In this chapter, we will explain the structure of a book that consists of chapters1.
A book consists of many chapters which are divided into the front matter, the text and the back matter. Depending on the characteristics of a book, the characteristics and the number of chapters included in each division may vary. For instance, if you consider a book with technical descriptions or manual tend to have more chapters included in the front and back matters than a novel or essay.
When you open up a PDF or printed book, you will find that the right side(recto) is an odd numbered page while the left side(verso) is an even numbered page. In many cases, a chapter begins on the right page, and for this purpose, sometimes, a blank page is inserted in front of a chapter.
Front Matter
This content comes at the beginning of a book, or in front of the text. It consists of a book half title, title page, dedication, table of contents, foreword, preface and acknowledgments.
The most fundamental items are shown as follows.
Title
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments2
You are recommended to sort the contents of the front matter as shown here.
Except for the table of contents that are automatically generated, you have to enter other contents on your own. When you create a chapter in the front matter, you need to select Title, Table of contents, Preface or Acknowledgments as a type of chapter as the name indicates and for the rest of them, you need to select Front Matter Chapter as a type of chapter.
Title Chapter
Unlike other chapters with paragraphs, a title chapter consists of pages that perform unique functions. The main components are shown as follows.
Between the book cover and the book half title page, one or two slip sheets are inserted. When you count the number of pages, you don’t include this slip sheets.
- First page(i)—Book half title
On a slip sheet or attached sheet in front of a book’s title page, simple book title, series title, and collection title are displayed. An author’s name or publishing details are not displayed but instead, a simple book title is displayed in general.
- Second page(ii)— Series title, frontispiece, or blank page
A series title(title of a series where a book belongs to) or illustrations or a blank page is located.
- Third page(iii)— Title page
It is a title page for a book that consists of a book’s title, subtitle and publishing company information.
- Fourth page(iv)— Copyright page
This page consists of the various information relevant to the copyrights.
- Fifth page(v)— Dedication
On this page, usually, an author or publisher expresses gratitude toward a person they are indebted to or benefactors, seniors, and friends through their publication.
- Sixth page(vi)— Epigraph
On this page, a book’s philosophy or intention is expressed by quotations. If a dedication is omitted, this one is located on the fifth page.
To set the pages constituting a title, you can use the PDF Page Layout or Creating a Design Page functions.
The front matter has the following characteristics.
Roman numbers(i, ii, iii…) are used for page numbering.
Chapters or section titles are not numbered.
Text
The text occupies most of a book’s content and consists of many chapters.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5
In some cases, multiple chapters are grouped together as a Part. For more details, refer to Creating a Part Type Chapter.
The text has the following characteristics.
Arabian numbers(1, 2, 3…) are used for page numbering.
Parts, chapters and section titles are numbered.
Back Matter
The back matter contains the useful contents necessary when you want to understand the text.
The most important items are shown as follows.
Appendix
Chronology
Abbreviations
Glossary
Bibliography or References
List of Contributors
Index
Colophon
You are recommended to sort the contents of the back matter as shown here.
Except for Index that is automatically generated, you must enter the contents on your own. When you create a chapter in the back matter, you need to select Appendix, or Index as a type of chapter as the name indicates, and for the rest of them, you need to select Back Matter Chapter as a type of chapter.
In the future, the systematic management for abbreviations, glossary, and bibliography will be provided for users.
The back matter has the following characteristics.
A page number should follow the text’s last page number.
Arabian numbers(1, 2, 3…) are used for page numbering.
Appendix has its own numbering method for chapters and section titles.
Chapters and section titles except for appendix are not numbered.
- For the content of this chapter and the terminology descriptions in this chapter, we referred to The Chicago Manual of Style and literature information study dictionary.
- It can be included as part of the preface without creating an additional chapter for it.