Standard manuscript format: how to set up your book file before it goes to an editor or publisher

The standard settings

Writer's Digest's manuscript formatting guidelines are the most widely cited version. Its rules were written for writers sending a novel to an agent, but the same layout is what most editors expect from any book manuscript.

What a publisher's guidelines add

Publishers that take finished manuscripts often publish their own preparation rules. The University of Chicago Press's manuscript preparation guidelines are a good example of what a book publisher asks for, and most of it applies to any manuscript you hand to an editor:

• Word files. It prefers final manuscripts in Microsoft Word.
• One file for the text. Combine all the text into a single Word file. Send tables as separate Word files and figures as separate files, not embedded in the text, with a callout in the text on its own line after the paragraph that first mentions each one.
• Keep formatting simple. It says any additional formatting other than italic will be stripped when the file is processed. Bold, colors, fancy fonts and decorative spacing are wasted work.
• Clear heading levels. Subhead levels must be clearly different. With 12-point text, it suggests first-level headings at 18 point bold, second-level at 16 point bold and third-level at 14 point bold.
• Block quotations. Indent extracts from the left, and use a hard return only at the end of a prose paragraph.
• Notes. Create notes with Word's footnote and endnote feature, without changing the preset options, and never type over the automatic note numbers.
• Every page numbered. No page should be unnumbered or share a number with another page.

Self-publishing authors do not submit to a press, but the same habits make editing faster and cheaper: an editor who has to clean up a file before reading it is billing you for that time.

Setting it up in Word or Google Docs

1. Set the body style, not each paragraph. Change the Normal style to your 12-point font, double spacing and a first-line indent. Every paragraph then follows it, and nothing has to be fixed by hand.
2. Indent with the paragraph setting, not tabs or spaces. A first-line indent in the style is invisible to the editor and easy to change. Tabs and spaces have to be stripped out one by one.
3. Use real heading styles. Apply Heading 1 to chapter titles and Heading 2 to sections. Headings then show up in the navigation pane and can build a table of contents later.
4. Start chapters with a page break. Insert a page break, not a row of blank lines. Blank lines move when the text above them changes.
5. Put your name, title and page number in the header. Use the header and page number tools so they update on their own.
6. Use the notes feature. If your book has notes, insert them with the footnote or endnote tool rather than typing numbers.

Checklist before you send it

• One file for the text, named with your name, the title and the date.
• 12-point standard font, double-spaced, 1-inch margins.
• Paragraphs indented with the paragraph setting; no extra blank lines between paragraphs.
• Every chapter starts on a new page with a page break.
• Chapter titles and section headings use heading styles, at clearly different sizes.
• Pages numbered, with your name and the title in the header.
• Notes made with the notes feature; tables and images sent separately if your editor or publisher asks.
• Comments and tracked changes from earlier drafts accepted or removed, unless you mean your editor to see them.
• Your editor's or publisher's own requirements checked and followed, since theirs override everything above.

Once the file is clean, see working with your editor for what happens next, and the types of editing if you are still deciding which edit your book needs.