--- title: "Book writing software for a novel in Hungarian" description: "Write and typeset a Hungarian novel: „low-right quotes” as you type, hyphenation for long agglutinated words, ő and ű drawn properly, and a print-ready PDF." source: https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-hungarian --- # Book writing software for writing a novel in Hungarian TL;DR Hungarian needs ő and ű with a real double acute, not an umlaut standing in for one, and it needs hyphenation because the words are long. Galley does both, types the „low-right” quote pair, and gives you a print PDF any Hungarian printer will take. Magyar ## Hogyan írjunk regényt magyarul A Galley az a hely, ahol megírod a regényt, és ahol könyvet csinálsz belőle. Az első mondattól kezdve valódi könyvoldalon írsz: a te méreted, a te margóid, a kész könyv betűtípusa. Az idézőjelek magyarok, az elválasztás a magyar szabályokat követi, és tizenöt könyvbetű közül választhatsz, mindegyik szabad licencű, tehát eladhatod, amit kinyomtatsz. A végén nyomdakész PDF és érvényes EPUB áll rendelkezésedre. A felület angol; a könyv magyar. ## Why Galley is the right book writing software for a novel in Hungarian Hungarian asks two specific things of a book tool and most tools fail the first one silently. The first is ő and ű. They take a double acute, two separate strokes leaning the same way, and they are not umlauts. A font with shallow coverage substitutes ö and ü, or fakes the mark by shifting an umlaut, and the result is a page that a Hungarian reader finds wrong without necessarily being able to name why. Every face on the Hungarian shelf carries a real double acute. The second is hyphenation. Hungarian is agglutinative and the words get long, so a justified page without hyphenation opens holes. Galley carries Hungarian patterns and applies them in the print PDF when you justify. Justification is off by default, and ragged right never needs it. Then there is the market, and it is closed at one end: **Amazon does not list Hungarian in any format.** So the print-ready PDF and the valid EPUB are the whole product, and Galley makes both without shaping either for a store that will not take them. Everything else is the same app: a [true book page](https://usegalley.com/features/make-the-book) at your trim, the [story bible](https://usegalley.com/features/story-bible) beside the manuscript, a print-ready PDF and a valid EPUB. ## How Hungarian gets typeset **Hyphenation follows Hungarian rules**, in the justified print PDF only. **The double acutes go all the way through**, including into the download filename, so a book called Hosszú Őszök arrives under its own name. **Sorting is Hungarian**, so the digraphs and the accented vowels land where a Hungarian reader expects them. **Italics work.** All fifteen faces ship a drawn italic. ## The typefaces you get for Hungarian Fifteen faces, all under the [SIL Open Font License](https://openfontlicense.org/). The double acute is the coverage test here. **EB Garamond** is the safe first choice for a novel. ![Sample sentence in EB Garamond](https://usegalley.com/images/specimens/eb-garamond-en.png) **Charis SIL** has the deepest diacritic coverage on the shelf. ![Sample sentence in Charis SIL](https://usegalley.com/images/specimens/charis-sil-en.png) **Vollkorn** is warm and a little heavy, and it holds at small sizes. ![Sample sentence in Vollkorn](https://usegalley.com/images/specimens/vollkorn-en.png) The rest of the shelf: Crimson Pro, Cormorant, Lora, Libre Baskerville, Literata, Source Serif 4, Spectral, Alegreya, Cardo, Gentium Book Plus, Newsreader and Libre Caslon Text. **What you will not find here:** Bodoni Antiqua’s Hungarian cuts and the commercial revivals of Kner Imre’s house faces. The [typeface documentation](https://usegalley.com/docs/book-design#typeface) lists every face by language. ## Exports for a Hungarian novel - **Print-ready PDF** at your trim, mirrored margins, real gutter, font embedded. - **EPUB 3** with your cover, tagged `hu`. - **Store-ready EPUBs** for Kobo and Apple Books. - **Word and Markdown** for a szerkesztő or an archive. - **Manuscript format**, double-spaced. - **A proofreading PDF** two pages to a sheet, and a **large print PDF**. - **A watermarked copy per beta reader**. The Amazon-shaped tools switch off on a Hungarian book and say why. ## Hungarian punctuation The quote pair you get automatically, and it is worth naming what makes it Hungarian: the opening mark sits low and the closing mark points right, which is not the German pair even though the opening mark is the same character. Hungarian dialogue is set with a dash at the head of the line, which is a character you type. The [dialogue punctuation rules](https://usegalley.com/resources/dialogue-punctuation-rules) and [dashes, hyphens and ellipses](https://usegalley.com/resources/dashes-hyphens-and-ellipses) sheets cover the general cases. ## How long a Hungarian novel is Hungarian publishing counts in szerzői ív, one ív being 40,000 characters including spaces. Galley counts words, so expect to convert: Hungarian runs roughly 7 characters per word with spaces, which puts an 85,000 word novel near 15 ív. The [word count to page count converter](https://usegalley.com/resources/word-count-to-page-count) turns a length into a page count at your trim. ## Trim sizes for a Hungarian book Six standards, from mass market at 4.25×6.87 inches to Royal at 6.14×9.21. Hungarian trade fiction is commonly issued around 13×20cm, close to the Digest at 5.5×8.5 inches. The [spine width calculator](https://usegalley.com/resources/book-spine-width-calculator) and the [trim size comparison](https://usegalley.com/resources/book-trim-size-comparison) would be helpful here. ## Metadata and the copyright page The [copyright page](https://usegalley.com/docs/publishing#copyright-page) writes itself from the metadata you filled in. A Hungarian ISBN comes from the Országos Széchényi Könyvtár. One thing to set correctly: Hungarian puts the family name first. The metadata field takes whatever you type, and the copyright page prints it as you entered it, so enter it the way you want it printed. ## Translating into or out of Hungarian A translation in Galley is its own book: its own language, its own typeface shelf, its own ISBN, its own cover, still linked to the original, with the editor split so the original sits read-only beside what you write. There are pages on [writing a novel in Romanian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-romanian), [writing a novel in Czech](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-czech) and [writing a novel in Finnish](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-finnish). No machine touches the prose. Galley has [no AI anywhere near your writing](https://usegalley.com/blog/no-ai-in-your-prose). ## Self-publishing and traditional publishing in Hungarian **Self-publishing.** Amazon is closed, so print goes through a Hungarian printer or IngramSpark and the ebook goes to Google Play, Apple Books, Kobo or a Hungarian store. **Traditional publishing.** Hungarian houses read submissions directly, and support from the national cultural funds is part of how literary fiction gets published. The [submission package](https://usegalley.com/docs/publishing#where-it-goes) assembles the synopsis, the bio and the opening chapters. The same book exports both. The longer arguments are in [Galley for self-publishing](https://usegalley.com/blog/galley-for-self-publishing) and [Galley for traditional publishing](https://usegalley.com/blog/galley-for-traditional-publishing). ## Where to go next - [Writing software for novelists who don’t write in English](https://usegalley.com/blog/write-a-novel-in-your-language) covers every script Galley sets. - [Book design and typefaces](https://usegalley.com/docs/book-design#typeface) lists every face by language. - [Series and translations](https://usegalley.com/docs/series-and-translations) covers the full language list. - [Book typography basics](https://usegalley.com/blog/book-typography-basics) is the set of rules that makes a page look made. ## Questions people ask about writing a novel in Hungarian ### Which quote marks does a Hungarian book get? The low-then-right pair, „like this”, which is the Hungarian convention and different from the German low-then-high pair. The rule follows the book's language. ### Are ő and ű drawn properly? Yes. Every face on the shelf carries a real double acute instead of substituting an umlaut, which is the shortcut that makes a Hungarian page look wrong. ### Can I sell a Hungarian book on Amazon KDP? No. Amazon does not list Hungarian in any format. The print PDF goes to a Hungarian printer or IngramSpark, and the EPUB goes to any store that sells Hungarian. ### Does Galley hyphenate Hungarian? Yes, on Hungarian patterns, and only in the print PDF when you justify. Hungarian words are long enough that it matters. ## Other languages - [Book writing software for Romanian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-romanian)Write and typeset a Romanian novel: ș and ț with a comma below and not a cedilla, „low-right quotes” as you type, hyphenation by Romanian rules and a print-ready PDF. - [Book writing software for Czech](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-czech)Write and typeset a Czech novel: „low-high quotes“ as you type, hyphenation by Czech rules, háček and kroužek intact through every export, and a print-ready PDF. - [Book writing software for Finnish](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-finnish)Write and typeset a Finnish novel: the right quote pair as you type, hyphenation that copes with agglutination, fifteen book faces and a print-ready PDF for Amazon or a Finnish printer. Start the book. Galley sets it in Hungarian from the first sentence to the print PDF. [Launch Galley](https://app.usegalley.com)