How can I get free Microsoft word templates for poetry books?

Question

I am designing a poetry ebook with Microsoft word. Where can I find free templates that I can use? All the free templates I see online are for InDesign but I need one for Microsoft word.

Thanks.

Answer 1

It's complicated to format poetry. I'm not sure MS word would be the best way to do it. I've formatted 2 ebooks with a good amount of poetry and I did it purely with css.

EPUBSECRETS wrote a two part article on it: http://epubsecrets.com/well-hung-poetry-ebooks-and-indents-part-one.php and http://epubsecrets.com/well-hung-poetry-ebooks-and-indents-part-two.php

Derek Murphy has two videos about formatting poetry on MS Word: http://diybookformats.com/format-publish-market-book-poetry/ Murphy always has great ideas, but I'm skeptical about using MS Word for poetry.

My code about formatting verse is somewhere, I can't find it at the moment. Two hints: 1)make sure you test on BOTH a small device (IE width less than 767 px) and a 10 inch tablet (1025px and above). 2)Make sure the page breaks where you want. The css properties page-break-before and page break-after are supposed to work; I can't remember if they work in Kindle. CHeck Paul Salvette's article http://www.paulsalvette.com/2012/04/adding-page-breaks-for-your-kindle.html

I use something like this:

blockquote.stanza {
     margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;  

 }

 /* for verse lines. */

 p.line-verse {
    text-indent: -2em; padding-left: 3em;
    padding-right: 3em;
    line-height: 80%;

 }

Looking over this code, I realize that line-height was used mainly for a quotation of a longer verse passage in a prose chapter. You wouldn't need to use that.