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Chapter Headings

Vellum gives you control over many aspects of your chapter headings. The Title Editor allows you to edit your chapter’s title, as well as configure other options via its gear menu.

Menu shown for making changes to a Chapter heading

Editing the Title

To give your chapter a title – or to change an existing one – click on the large text at the top of the editor. You can specify the title in the provided text field.

Clearing the Title

To restore your chapter’s title to its default value, use the Clear Title item found in the gear menu.

Adding a Subtitle

Select Add Subtitle in the gear menu and an additional text field will appear below your chapter’s title:

The title editor showing the field to provide a subtitle

The subtitle will appear in your chapter heading, but will not be listed in the Table of Contents.

Chapter / Volume Author

Elements like Chapter and Volume include an additional menu item —  Add Chapter Author or Add Volume Author — that you can use to specify an author for a particular section of the book:

The title editor showing a Volume in a box set and its associated author

You can use this field when creating an anthology or a multiple-author box set.

This option is also available for the Foreword, Introduction, and Afterword elements, so you can use it to credit a guest author who has contributed to your book.

Heading Image

Choose Add Heading Image… to decorate a chapter heading with an illustration, photograph, or other picture.

The size and layout of Heading Images coordinate with the Book and Heading Styles you’ve selected in Vellum’s Styles pane:

Heading Image Properties

Click the Heading Image to display its properties. The popover displays details about whether your image has enough resolution, and allows you to to enter a description for accessibility.

The Heading Image Properties popover dialog

Like the description for an Inline Image, this description is used by screen reading software to describe your image to a reader who might not be able to see it.

A description is recommended unless your heading image is solely used for decoration.

Assigning Heading Images to Multiple Elements

To assign the same heading image to multiple elements, select the elements you want to affect in the Navigator, and then use the Heading section of the Chapter menu:

Heading Images and File Size

Including Heading Images in your book will increase the size of generated files, which can affect your royalties when selling through Amazon.

When you reuse a heading image across multiple chapters, though, only one copy of the image will be included in your ebook. (It won’t be duplicated for each chapter.)

More information about file size, image size, and delivery costs can be found within Kindle Delivery Costs.

Show / Hide Heading in Book

Use this option to control the visibility of the entire heading in your final book. Elements like Copyright and Epigraph hide headings so that the title isn’t displayed. This option does not affect chapter numbering.

Note: the title of your element will still be used in the Table of Contents, regardless of whether your heading is displayed.

Numbered

This indicates whether a Chapter should be numbered in the heading and in the Table of Contents. When unchecked, this chapter will not be considered when computing numbers for other chapters in the book. This option is not shown for other element types.