Beautiful paperback novels with Ulysses

Two years ago, I created an ePub export style for Ulysses, allowing you to create beautiful ebook versions of your novels. I’ve now created an equivalent PDF export style for Ulysses, which will let you create print-ready paperback PDF versions of your novels.

This export style generates 5” x 8” paperbacks, with suitable gutters etc for print-on-demand and so on. Note that it will force the 5x8 layout, ignoring the print settings chosen in Ulysses’ export UI. (To accommodate other output sizes, you can readily edit the theme yourself in Ulysses on a Mac.)

It’s a two-sided style, bound on the left, and handles automatic insertion of blank verso pages before chapters and parts (both of which are level 1 headings in this case). Page numbers and headers are included, and front and back matter are catered for (which might include title and half-title pages, copyright statements, dedications, epigraphs, author information, and whatever else you need).

As with the ePub export style, my new PDF export style is called Gemmell Novel, and is in the online Ulysses Styles repository. Download the Gemmell Novel (5 x 8in) PDF export style here.

To use it, follow the same formatting conventions I previously described. You may also find it helpful to view or use an example book layout in Ulysses-flavoured Markdown; you can download one here. Here’s an example of the PDF it will create.

I hope this export style will be useful to you. Best of luck with your books.