How we designed a book on Google Slides
Some tips and tricks to design a book collaboratively using this tool.
By Daniela Chong and Jimena Salinas
[Update — October 7th, 2019: This article has been edited since published on November 14th, 2017 to include Google slides’ new features.]
Google Slides is not a tool meant for designing print publications. Even if you are familiar with other tools built specifically for designing presentations (such as Keynote or even InDesign), then you know Google Slides lacks a lot of features in comparison. This means that if you want to use it to design a book or a print publication, it certainly lacks functionalities and can be very frustrating.
Then, why choose Google Slides to design a book? When six designers are working on finishing, iterating and finalising content at the same time, creating multiple versions of InDesign documents is not only tedious, but also risky. Different updated versions and having people edit documents back and forth usually results in lost content. Added to this, having a tight deadline to finish a print deliverable means Google Slides is a much more appealing option.
When collaboration is more important than design, Google Slides is the only way to go — even if this means having to create a few hacks on the go! (which we will share below)
1. Define the size of your book and set the page size
The first thing you need to do is define the size of the pages of your book. You can change the size of the slide by clicking on File > Page Setup > Custom. Choose your size in centimetres or inches.
2. Create your own rulers to measure the size of objects
Something that is really annoying about Google Slides is that you cannot customize or know the size of any object you create; a basic option when using Adobe Illustrator or InDesign. To hack this, you can create a ruler on Illustrator. You can do so by creating a page the same size as your book, and then inserting straight lines and leaving 1cm (or any other measurement you need) between each one of them to create a grid.
When it’s ready, export it as a JPEG or PNG (note that Google slides is not vector friendly), and then insert it into a new slide. This slide can be used as a reference whenever you need to measure the size of an object.
3. Add guides to your master slides to optimize the layout
Google Slides recently included the feature of adding guides to create grids and help with the composition. In Slide > Edit master, click on one of the rulers on the left or the top and then drag the mouse towards the slide. You will see a dotted guideline appear. You can then move the guides around or add as many as you want. Create different master slides with guides in varying positions according to the type of book page you want. When you return to the editing mode, you will see that all the guides are locked.
You can change the layout of the master slide anytime using the Layout button on the toolbar. You can also have a master slide without any guides if you don’t need them in certain cases.
Bonus tip: To easily divide the page evenly into columns or rows, create boxes of the same size (you can duplicate them using Alt and dragging the box). Create as many boxes as you want (depending on the number of columns you need, i.e. 4 columns = 4 boxes). Then, place them side by side. Finally, select all the boxes and stretch them until they fill the width or height you want. Afterwards, add guides on top of them and delete the boxes.
4. Add page numbers to your slides
You can easily add page numbers to your book by going to Insert > Slide Numbers. You can then change the font, size, and position of the number according to the type of page (left or right page of your book). You can also choose to delete page numbers for certain pages where you don’t need them to appear (i.e. chapter covers). You can edit page numbers by going to the master slides editor and editing the text box with a #.
5. Define colors and fonts
Similar to when designing a book in InDesign, we first recommend using different colors and font sizes and then printing a trial slide with all of the options. Since you cannot preview the real size of objects in Google slides, printing is the best option to visualize how your design will look like in real life.
Some handy tips:
- Google Fonts and FontPair: Google Slides only allows you to use Google Fonts. You can explore options here: https://fonts.google.com/ and different font combinations here: http://fontpair.co/
- Paint format: This button in Google Slides lets you copy the style of a text box and apply it to any other text you want.
- ColorZilla chrome extension: This tool lets you pick any color and shows you the color code using HEX, which is perfect for Google slides. http://www.colorzilla.com/chrome/
6. Previewing in book format as you design
Google Slides is not meant for designing books, which is why facing pages (or slides) is not an option. This can be very annoying when designing a book in spreads. To help with the previewing and printing process, we came up with two hacks for side by side previewing.
- Create a separate Google Slides file for side by side trials:
Create a separate Google Slides file with the page size of the book in spreads or facing pages. Then copy and paste the content from your main document to visualize how the spreads will look like side by side.
- Export the document as a PDF:
Open in Preview or Adobe Acrobat Reader the exported Google Slides file in PDF and then select View > Page Display > Two Page View to preview the exported book in spreads.
Bonus tip: An easier and less time-consuming hack you can use to preview how the composition will look like side by side is to shift to the mosaic view on Google slides and zoom in until only two pages are shown in your screen. Even though you have less control of the design, this is ideal for cases in which time is running out, but you still need to preview how the book will look like in spreads.
Top 3 recommendations for Google Slides
We understand that Google Slides is not meant for designing books. This is why we have invented these hacks to facilitate your design process. However, these are quick features we suggest Google Slides could add that would drastically improve our experience:
- Locking objects and guides: Incorporating the ability to lock objects can save us the need to use the master slide option when inserting objects or guides that we want to remain fixed in position.
- The ability to insert objects with customized sizes: This would have saved us a lot of time used in printing the document to check if the sizes were right.
- Vector-friendly integration: To insert Adobe Illustrator files (or any .svg file), you still need to export to a format such as PNG or JPEG. Simply copy-pasting vectors would make the experience much more seamless.
After figuring out a few hacks on the go, we can say that Google Slides is the best tool for designing a book with a tight deadline and between six (or more) people. It is great at online collaboration, has a fast learning curve, and can be easily used by everyone (not just graphic designers!).
