How to Print a Book at Home

Printing your own book at home can be done without any special tools other than good word processor software and a printer. The end result is suitable for local recipe collection cookbooks, family story collections, organization directories and yearbooks or children's books. Each book can be printed out as many times as you like, whenever it is needed. The only cost is paper, ink and your choice of binding for each book.

Open a new project in your word processing software.

Set the margins for the entire document as 1'' on top, bottom, and the left. Set the margin on the right side as 2''. This will leave plenty of room for binding.

Set the headers and footers. A header is a small amount of text that will show at the top of every page. A footer is text that will show at the bottom of every page. For the header, make it the name of your book. The footer is optional, but you may want to make it the name of your organization.

Set your program to add numbering on each page. The best place to put the numbering is on the upper right-hand edge or on the lower right-hand edge, though some put it centered on the bottom of the page.

Designate the first page as your title page. Type the name of the book and the name of the author or organization. Select the text and center it on the page by pressing the "center" button or by pressing Ctrl+E.

Start adding your text. Separate blocks of text by adding bolded subtitles or chapter names.

Add an index at the end of the document listing subjects in the book and their page numbers, if you feel that your book would benefit from it. Most recipe and how-to guides have indexes.

Print your book once you have checked it for spelling errors and grammar mistakes. Preview how the book will look before you print it by going to the File drop-down menu and selecting "Print Preview." If the book looks fine, press Ctrl+P. A dialog box will pop up asking you for preferences. Select "Print All" and "OK."

Create another project for your cover. Set the margins the same as in Step 2. Choose a large font for your book title and a smaller font for the author name or organization name. Add a picture, if you like, and center it on the page or make it the full size of the page. Print these on card stock the same way you printed the book in Step 8.