According to some embodiments, techniques are described herein to assist a publisher to create fixed layout pages of an electronic publication. The techniques are useful for creating cookbooks, travel books, photography books, children's books, other “illustrated books”, or any other electronic publication where a fixed layout for at least some of the pages of the electronic publication is desirable. With the techniques, the publisher may embed fonts, select particular fonts and font sizes, assign visual content to fixed layout pages, and precisely position visual content at fixed positions on fixed layout pages. A scaling mechanism for an electronic reader device is also disclosed for scaling fixed layout pages to fit the size of a display screen of the reader device while maintaining the aspect ratio and assignment of visual content to fixed layout pages specified by the publisher.