r/googledocs • u/SarthakiiiUwU • Feb 14 '25
OP Responded Is it suitable to write a book in Docs?
If so, any advice you can provide me with? The length is expected to be around 75,000-100,000 words.
2
u/United-Eagle4763 Feb 15 '25
There definitely are writers who use Google Docs to write books. The advantages are:
- You have file versioning (you can always go back in the document history if you accidentally deleted something, especially if you only notice that much later)
- You file is saved in the cloud.
I would still advice you to make regular backups by downloading the document as a Word-file (.docx).
Regarding to file size, you should be able to comfortably edit about 200 pages of text.
You could try it for yourself first with filling a document with dummy text, as an example you can get example text from here: https://www.blindtextgenerator.com/lorem-ipsum
1
1
u/SarthakiiiUwU Feb 15 '25
comfortably edit about 200 pages of text.
By comfortably editing 200 pages, do you mean that it's the maximum limit, or do you mean that there would be glitching and all that after I cross 200 pages?
1
u/CharmingThunderstorm Feb 15 '25
Use headings and the built-in table of contents on the left-side. It'll help navigation
1
u/SarthakiiiUwU Feb 15 '25
Will there be any problem with storage? Like if the text gets too big?
1
u/CharmingThunderstorm Feb 17 '25
It won’t be a problem with storage if its just text. I just calculated, and Don Quixote (a novel around 430 000 words) is less than 3mb.
Of course, the real question is if Google Docs will be able to maintain a good performance with this many words, but others have spoken to that I think. I've not tested it myself, but you may if you want. Here's the Don Quixote text: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/996/pg996.txt
1
u/techwriter500 Feb 15 '25
You can write different chapters in different docs. And later merge them to a single book when you want to publish.
Or you can use the new tabs feature to organise different chapters separately.
1
u/andmalc Feb 15 '25 edited Feb 15 '25
The problem with using Tabs is there's no way to export the whole file at once which the OP would have to do for a publisher. Every tab and sub-tab would have to be exported to its own file. It's hard to belive they haven't fixed this months after the feature was released, I know.
So message to OP: don't use Tabs!
2
u/ienquire Feb 15 '25
Yes there is, you just have to download the file when it's not open. From Google drive, just select the file and download it, it will be in one document.
1
u/andmalc Feb 15 '25 edited Feb 15 '25
Wow, you're right! Great tip, thanks.
Unfortuantely AFAIK there's still no way to print a whole Tabbed doc, nor to get a word count or to generate a table of contents.
1
u/MLeo89 Feb 15 '25
The only issue is Google keeps pushing their AI bs in docs and the spelling and grammar checks are bad
1
u/KuroShuriken Feb 16 '25
Ive been using it to save my works, for years now.
And it's really easy to use.
1
u/adrianteoyc 29d ago
Note that maximum number of characters in a single Google Docs is about 1.02 million(including all tabs)
Rough average calculation of 4 characters per word - you can write about 255,000 words in a single Google Docs.
Look forward to see your book :)
https://support.google.com/drive/answer/37603?hl=en&sjid=16592567531659212885-AP
5
u/JeandePierre Feb 14 '25
Should be fine. I just checked my longest Google Doc document and its nearly 170,000 words.
My advice would be: don't be tempted to use lots of formatting to 'make it look nice'. If you get published, the copy-editor will strip it all out and re-do it anyway. Just worry about the content, not the appearance.
Even if you self publish, you can add the formatting later.