Common questions

• What paper will my book have for the cover and interior?
• How much will my printed book cost?
• What types of binding are available?
• How do I make my content stretch all the way to the edge of the page (full bleed)?
• How to turn your Docx file into a Doc file
• What fonts can I use in my document?
• How big should my margins be?
• How do I embed fonts in a PDF?
• PDF Creation Settings (How can I be sure my PDF will print correctly?)
• How to Make a PDF using Word and Adobe Acrobat
• What dimensions should my one piece (wraparound) cover have?
• What dimensions should my book cover images have?

What paper will my book have for the cover and interior?

Cover stock:

• Saddle Stitch: 100# / 270gsm unlaminated cover stock
• Perfect Bound and PlastiCoil: 100# / 270gsm laminated cover stock
• Hardcover:
  • plain white head and footbands
  • 80# / 115gsm stock endsheets in cream or white (depending on the color of the book's interior text stock)
    • Casewrap - 80# / 115sm gloss laminated white cover stock wrapped over
    a .088" binder's board
    • Dust Jacket - Navy blue linen wrapped over a .088" binder's board
      • Gold foil stamp on spine for title and/or author name (max 42 characters including spaces)
      • Jacket - 100# / 270gsm gloss laminated white cover stock

This site has a great chart to help reduce the paper weight confusion: http://www.paper-paper.com/weight.html.

How much will my printed book cost?

Cost for Lulu Marketplace Books

Note: The cost of color books is significantly more than black and white books. When you select the color printing ("Full color pages") option in the publishing wizard, the cost is $0.20 for every page in the book, not just the pages with color.

Manufacturing Cost for Distribution Books

Note: Books distributed through our distribution channels have different setup costs from those of Lulu-printed books

What types of binding are available?

Lulu offers 5 binding options:

Perfect Bound: A paperback book where the title and author's name are printed on the spine. Your book must have 70-80 pages for text to appear on the spine.

Saddle stitch: A stapled booklet. Best for very thin books. Your page count should be divisible by 4. If it is not, the printer adds enough blank pages to the back of your book to make the page count divisible by 4.

PlastiCoil: A spiral bound book (like a spiral notebook). Recommended for books less than 1" thick, between 48 and 470 pages.

Dust Jacket Hardcover: A book bound in navy blue linen with a full-color dust jacket.

Casewrap Hardcover: Full-color, glossy cover; no dust jacket.

Page Maximums and Minimums for Lulu Books

How do I make my content stretch all the way to the edge of the page (full bleed)?

Create one PDF with a page size .25” (.68cm) larger in both width and height than the book chosen. For example, a 6 x 9" book will need a PDF with a page size of 6.25 x 9.25". The printer trims all four sides of the page equally. There is a .125 inch (.36cm) variation in the trimming process. Improperly sized or applied bleeds will result in a white strip or important parts of the image or text cut off at the edge of the page.

Do not include:

• Crop marks or registration marks
• Multiple-page spreads (Separate into single pages)
• Pages in a landscape orientation
• The cover

If the PDF page size is not within .25" (.68cm) of the book size chosen, the Lulu wizard automatically resizes the PDF to that book size without any bleed area.

Dimensions for full bleed

How to turn your Docx file into a Doc file

Lulu cannot accept .docx (Word Document Docx (.docx)) files at this time.

However, Microsoft Word does allow you to change your file to the old .doc file type. Below are instructions on how to change your file type.

1. With your .docx file open in Microdoft Word, click file in the window toolbar, then click 'Save as'.
   
2. Click the format box and select the Word 97-2004 Document (.doc) option, then save.
   

You now have a file you can upload to Lulu's Publishing Wizard.

What fonts can I use in my document?

If you are planning to upload your own PDF, you may use any fonts you like, but you must embed the fonts in the PDF before uploading to Lulu. If you are planning to have Lulu convert your document to a PDF, be sure to choose fonts from the following list. If you use a font that is not on this list, the Lulu converter will substitute one of these fonts in its place. This may adversely affect your formatting.

• Arial
• Book Antiqua
• Bookman Old Style
• Century
• Courier
• Garamond
• Palatino
• Tahoma
• Times New Roman
• Verdana
• Symbols

Follow these general guidelines when choosing your fonts:

• Serif fonts are best for printed documents. Use serif fonts like Garamond, Times New Roman and Palatino for blocks of body text.
• Sans serif fonts are best for online documents and for display text. Use sans serif fonts like Arial and Verdana if you intend your book to be viewed online.
• Use bold sans serif fonts for title text or headings.

How big should my margins be?

Leave at least .5" margins on all your pages. Most books will require a gutter of .2" to .3". A gutter provides a little bit of extra margin on the spine edge of your pages, making your book easier to read without putting too much stress on the spine. For coil-bound books, the coils bite about 5/16" (8mm) on the spine edge, but we would suggest a gutter of 3/8" (9mm). Follow these directions to set your margins:

• Microsoft Word: Choose Page Setup from the File menu, then use the Margins tab. When adding a gutter, make sure to select Mirror Margins. Apply your settings to the whole document.
• Microsoft Works: Choose Page Setup from the File menu, then use the Margins tab. Works has no provision for a gutter.
• Open Office: Choose Page from the Format menu. To create a gutter, add the desired gutter to the inside margin dimension. Then select Mirrored under the Layout Settings, Page Layout choices.

How do I embed fonts in a PDF?

If you are planning to upload your own PDF, you may use any fonts you like, but you must embed the fonts in the PDF before uploading to Lulu. It is possible to embed all of the characters in a font or only the characters used. Lulu's Distribution service requires fonts to be fully embedded. If you do not have printing rights for a font, you will not be able to embed it properly and it will not print correctly.

Embedding fonts in Adobe products:

The easiest way to ensure your PDF prints the way you want with the fonts you want is to use Lulu's Adobe Job Options.

The other option is to adjust the settings yourself by gonig into the PDF settings.

1. Under the fonts tab select Embed all fonts and Subset embedded fonts when percent of characters used is less than: Set the percentage to 1%.
   
2. Select the folder with the fonts you want to embed from the drop down box under Embedding
   
3. Check the Never Embed Font box and remove any fonts in the box.
   

Embedding fonts in OpenOffice:

OpenOffice automatically embeds all fonts used.

PDF Creation Settings (How can I be sure my PDF will print correctly?)

When creating a PDF with Adobe Products, use Lulu's Adobe Job Options. After downloading them to your computer, double click the icon and it will be installed into all Adobe products.

If you are uploading your own PDF, follow these guidelines:

• Fully embed all fonts used in the document. Take care that all fonts are only embedded once. Subsetted fonts over multiple pages can cause problems when your PDF is rasterized for print. Your document may be printed with symbols instead of fonts, garbled text or missing text.
• Set compatibility mode to PDF 1.3 (PDF 1.3 does not support transparencies and will flatten them when creating the PDF).
• Leave the PDF's colorspace in its original profile. Do not convert CMYK to RGB or vice versa.
• Solid blacks will print solid at 100% with no other colors added. If you do add colors to improve the richness of the black, TAC (total area coverage) should never exceed 270%.
• Avoid very light color builds of less than 20%. Below 20% tint variation is very difficult to control on a consistent basis.
• Turn off Overprint and Simulate Overprint
• The PDF filesize should not exceed 700MB
• If your image DPI is greater than 300, downsample to 300 DPI.
• Flatten your images.
• Flatten all transparancies.
• Do not use any security / password protection. The printer will not be able to print the PDF.
• Image compression should be set to ZIP if you want lossless (no artifacts/distortion-free) images. To reduce filesize, use JPEG -> High. Do not use CCITT or LZW compression. LZW compression creates multi-strip images, which may show white lines when printed.
• If you are printing a color book that has black & white images in it, the black & white images should have the colorspace set to grayscale.
• The gamma of a grayscale image should be between 2.2 and 2.4.

How to Make a PDF using Word and Adobe Acrobat

Using Word on a Mac (PC version below)

1. Go to File on the menu bar and click Print.
   
2. Select the Adobe PDF printer from the Printer drop down box and click the Print button.
   
3. Enter a file name for your PDF and click the Save button
   

Using Word on a PC

1. Go to File on the menu bar and click Print.
   
2. Select Adobe PDF printer and click the Properties button
   
3. Under the Layout tab click the Advanced button
   
4. Adjust the Paper Size to be the same as the paper size of your Word Document and click OK
   
5. Under the Adobe PDF Settings tab select lulu
   
6. Change the page size in the Adobe PDF Page Size field or click the Add button to add a custom size
   
7. Enter the Paper Name and Page Size of your manuscript and click the Add/Modify button
   
8. Select View Adobe PDF Results, Rely on system fonts only; do not use document fonts, and Delete log files for successful jobs and click the OK button
   
9. Enter a file name and click the Save button
   

What dimensions should my one piece (wraparound) cover have?

Dimensions for a one piece cover can be found in the cover step of the Publishing Wizard or in the boxes below. If the dimensions of the PDF uploaded to the One-Piece Cover Wizard are not correct, the PDF will not be accepted by the Cover Wizard.

The cover dimensions for hardcover books are slightly larger than the size of the text block. This is normal; the cover is slightly larger than the pages of the book

This is the equation for determining the width of a one-piece cover for a paperback:

Bleed + back cover + spine + front cover + bleed

This is the equation for determining the dimensions of a one-piece cover for a dust jacket hardcover:

Bleed + Back Flap + Back Cover + Spine + Front Cover + Front Flap + Bleed

This is the equation for determining the dimensions of a one-piece cover for a casewrap hardcover:

Turn-in bleed + Back Cover + Spine + Front Cover + Turn-in Bleed

One-Piece Cover Size is Below in Orange:

What dimensions should my book cover images have?

Create cover images .25" (.68 cm) larger than the height and .125" (.36 cm) larger than the width of the chosen book size. For example, a 6" by 9" book will need an image 6.125" by 9.25". There is a .125 inch (.36cm) variation in the trimming and folding process. The cover does not use a bleed at the spine. Covers for hardcover books are slightly larger than the interior pages. .75" of a casewrap hardcover cover image is folded around the cover. Improperly sized or applied bleeds will result in a white strip or important parts of the image or text cut off at the edge of the cover. Do not include crop marks or registration marks.

The following chart lists our book sizes accompanied by the appropriate size with bleed for the cover image file and a template to use while creating a cover image. Right-click or Control+click on the link and "Save as Target" or "Save Link as". The 5.5 x 8.5" and 8.5 x 11" Publisher grade books will have bar codes.

Cover Templates with Bleed