How to Add Colour to Your Book Interior

A touch of colour, usually on chapter headings and drop caps, is the most common way a book interior uses it. In Deckle you set four colours for the whole book in Styles → Advanced → Colors: body text, background, headings, and an accent for ornaments and set-apart blocks. The drop cap has a colour of its own, under First paragraph. Text, heading and accent colours carry into every format; the background colour is for the PDF only.

What You'll Need

• A book in Deckle, and ideally a colour or two in mind, for example from your cover.
• For print, a printer and price plan that suits colour: see the FAQ.

Step-by-Step

1. Open the preview beside your chapter so you can see the colours on a real page.
2. Open Styles → Advanced → Colors. There are four rows: Body text, Background, Headings and Accent.
3. Pick each colour with its swatch, or type a full six-digit hex code such as #7A2E2E. The sample under the rows shows all four together.
4. Start with one accent colour. Set it as the accent, for ornaments, and as the drop cap colour under First paragraph → Color. One colour in those two places is the quietest way to bring colour into a book, and it looks deliberate.
5. Use Headings for chapter titles if you want them to match the accent or your cover.
6. Leave body text dark. Near-black on a light page is what long reading needs.
7. Check the ebook and the print book. Flip the preview between Kindle and Print. The background colour only appears in print; ebook readers choose their own background, including dark mode.

Common Mistakes

• Coloured body text. It tires the eye over hundreds of pages and can print unevenly. Keep colour for headings and accents.
• Relying on the background colour in an ebook. Readers control it, and many read in dark or sepia mode. Choose text colours that still work there.
• Forgetting print costs. Any colour on a printed page usually means a colour interior, which costs more per copy with print-on-demand services than black and white.