How to write a book using Google Docs

Google Docs can be easily used to write books. Similar to the Microsoft Word, you can insert citations, create PDF and Epub books. It has spell checking and grammar checking tools, which are almost as good as in the Microsoft Word. Google Docs can be used to insert sophisticated equations and even citations (references) at the end of your books. Currently, Google Docs has only disadvantage: it does not allow to make pages with Index at the end of the book. But this is not a problem since one can use external tools to make index pages.

The advantages of Google Docs are the following:

• It is totally free;
• You can easily share your book with colleagues and other editors;
• You can use voice recognition to reduce typing.

Here are the steps how to configure Google Docs to write large books. First, install extensions such as | Code Blocks (to add some programming code, if needed) and and Markdown Tools (allows to add Heading Numbers). Obviously. you need to use Chrome browser to use such extensions.

Open Google Docs and create a new document using [File]->[New]. Create a title page and then the other pages. Each section should be separated by a page break. When you finish with a section, do this [Insert]->[Break]->[Section break (next page)].

To add a citation, use [Tools]->[Citation]. Then fill a reference database using the style Chicago-Author-Date (17th ed.). This is the most accepted way to cite books and articles. This tools helps to fill the database using online database, just by typing ISBN number. You can always find such a number using Amazon web site.

At the end of the last section, click "Add references" (the blue button). It will add text with references, after sorting all reference entries according to last names.

Do not forget to add footer and header. Just use [Insert]->[Headers and Footer]->[Footer]. Add a page number, but make sure you do not add it on the first page (which is your title page). Simply click "Different on first page". Similarly, make a header. Since you used page breaks for each section, you can type the title of each section in the header. This is the most common way for many books.

Finally, when your book is ready, create an Index page at the end of the book. You need an external tool since Google Docs (unlike Microsoft Word) cannot generate the Index page with the keys. First, you should export your book to the PDF file. Then download the IndexGenerator program. It is free and works on Windows and Linux (if you use the provided Java jar file). This program has its own instruction, so I'll not cover it here. After you made an index of your book, export it to DOc format and copy and paste at the end of your book.

by S.Chekanov