Questions and answers
Your book
Where is my book kept?
In a folder you choose on your own computer. There is no Preface server that your manuscript passes through. Your chapters are kept as ordinary text files, so you can open and read them without Preface. Privacy has the details.
What can I bring it?
A Word document — a .docx — which is what Word, Google Docs, Scrivener and Pages all export. That is the only document format Preface reads. It can also open a book it made earlier.
Will importing change my Word file?
No. Preface reads it and makes a new book from it.
Which Word features come through?
Chapters (from Word’s heading styles, or from headings you only made bigger and bold), front and back matter such as a prologue or acknowledgments, scene breaks, italics and bold, footnotes and pictures. Text deleted with tracked changes stays out. Straight quotes are curled and double hyphens become dashes when the book is set.
Typesetting
Which typefaces are the styles set in?
Fonts Preface brings with it, each licensed to be given away and to be embedded in a book. So your book is set in the same faces on any computer, and the PDF you send a printer carries them. Every picture of a page on this site shows them. You can also add a font of your own to a book.
Does it fix everything on the page?
No. It fixes what it can, such as short last pages and facing pages that end at different heights, and weighs one problem against another across the whole book. Some things it can only point out, like a picture that’s too low-resolution. Preflight lists those.
Which printers and stores are the files for?
For print, Preface knows what the print-on-demand services publish about perfect-bound paperbacks: the trims they stock, the papers and inks they offer, the page counts they will bind, and what they want a cover file to look like. Each rule is quoted in the app beside the page and the date it was read there. You tell Preface which service is printing the book and it checks against that one. Hardcover isn’t covered yet.
The EPUB is EPUB 3, carrying an older navigation file as well for the converters that still want one, which is what the ebook stores take.
Two things worth knowing. These are published specifications rather than lessons from files a store has rejected, so read them as what the rules say and not as a promise about any one upload. And where a service asks for something Preface cannot produce, it tells you instead of sending the file anyway.
Buying it
Can I try it before I pay?
Yes, and not a cut-down version of it. Without a license Preface will import your manuscript, set it in any of the designs, run every check and show you the finished pages at any size you like. The one thing it will not do is write the file. So you can see exactly what Preface would make of your book, down to the page, before deciding whether the PDF and the EPUB are worth paying for.
What does it cost?
$129, once, while early access lasts; $179 after that. There is nothing to renew. Buy Preface
What does that get me?
A license to Preface that does not expire, including future updates with no version and no date at which they stop. It is for one person on up to three computers you own, on macOS and Windows, and there is no limit on how many books you make, what you do with them, how many pen names you publish under, or whether the work is yours or a client’s. Your key is checked on your own computer, so Preface never asks this site for permission to open your book. The terms say it properly.
Can I publish and sell the books I make with it?
Yes. The PDF and the EPUB are yours, with no restriction, no watermark and no royalty.
Will you charge me again later?
Not for Preface. Updates are included and we are not going to start charging for them, whatever the version number says. What may cost extra one day is something that is not Preface: cloud services, premium design collections, AI features, or a major new module for a kind of publishing Preface does not handle today. Decline all of it and nothing you have stops working. The terms list what will never be sold back to you.
What if I change my mind?
Thirty days, no reason needed, and we will not argue about it. How refunds work
Who am I paying?
Paddle, who are the merchant of record for the sale. Your card details go to them and never reach us, and theirs is the name that appears on your statement.
Running it
What do I need?
A Mac running macOS 10.15 or later, or a Windows PC. Preface is an app you download and install; it is not a website and there is nothing to keep open in a browser.
Does it need to be online?
No. Preface typesets, checks and exports with no network at all, and your license key is checked on your own computer rather than against a server.