Book design#Front matter

Prelims is a term from the book being. With him is referred to the pages of a book, which precede the actual content.

Components of the titles

The front matter consists of a rule:

• The half-title page or frontispiece (page 1)
• The frontispiece or Vakatseite ( page 2)
• The title page or Inner title ( page 3)
• The imprint page ( page 4)

These sites have no pagination. Then, at the earliest on page 5 of the book block, the actual text part begins. In addition to the title page, a dedication page ( on the next recto page after the title page, so on page 5), tables of contents and pages belong with prefaces. The text part of an annex can follow in the endnotes, the bibliography, one or more registers, a glossary, etc. are to be found.

Title bow

Formerly a separate sheet, the title sheet was kept in extensive works for all the text portion preceding information. It was printed only after the completion of the remaining sheets and paginated with Roman numerals. So could the table of contents, which could be set only at the end of course, be placed at the beginning of the book. For since the letters were expensive, was pathwise set when printing, corrected and resolved after the printing of the sentence again; only in exceptional cases, the sentence exceed the pressure was maintained ( "Get Rate").

The title sheet, in addition to the above information, contain figures and bibliographies, longer dedications, prefaces and abbreviations.

The tradition to paginate the prelims with Roman numerals, remained even after the end of the lead record preserved, but this is no longer universally common in Europe.