Standard manuscript format

What it does

Open your manuscript as a .docx, .odt, Markdown or plain-text file (or paste it), choose Novel or Short story, type the names and contact lines the first page needs, and download a new .docx laid out in standard manuscript format. Your file is never changed: the download is a new file named after the title.

The chapters, scenes and italics are read exactly as the manuscript word counter reads them, with the same choice of where chapters start: Heading 1 (the default when there are any), Heading 2, the Title style, chapter lines such as Chapter 12 or Prologue, hard page breaks, or a marker you type. Each chapter's title becomes a centred chapter heading (a Heading 1 in the new file, so your word processor's navigation pane lists the chapters). Paragraphs keep their italics and bold; every scene break becomes a centred #. Text before the first chapter, such as your own title page or a draft note, is left out and the page says how many words that was; tick Keep it to put it in before the first chapter.

A worked example. The example is The Tidewright's Ledger, an invented short manuscript of a prologue and three chapters. Its chapters hold 652 words; the 9 words before the prologue (a title line and a draft note) are left out. As a novel, the title page (which carries no header and no number) has about 700 words at the bottom; the prologue starts halfway down page 1 under the header Surname / Tidewright's Ledger / 1, and each chapter after it starts halfway down a new page. As a short story, page one carries your contact block with about 700 words at the top right, the title 40% of the way down, the byline, then the prologue's heading and text; the chapters follow with a blank line before each title.

How the word count is rounded

The guide says to round to the nearest hundred, and to the nearest 500 for longer work (“edging into novella territory”). It gives no exact point for that, so this page uses the 17,500 words the guide quotes as SFWA's lower bound for a novella: under 17,500 words the count goes to the nearest 100, from 17,500 to the nearest 500, novels included. So 1,507 words is about 1,500 words (the guide's own example), 1,550 is about 1,600, 17,240 is about 17,200, and 82,340 is about 82,500. Under 50 words the exact count is used, since the nearest hundred would be 0. The count is of your chapters, titles included, by this site's counting rule; your word processor may differ by a few words, for the reasons the word counter explains.

The rules it applies, and where they come from

Every rule below is taken from William Shunn's Proper Manuscript Format, a guide many magazines' and agents' submission pages link to, in its modern edition (Times New Roman rather than Courier), and from his own answers to readers on the same site. The quotes are copied from his pages as fetched on 16 October 2026; this page applies nothing that is not on this list. Where a market's guidelines say otherwise, the guide itself says to follow theirs: “If their rules differ from these, follow theirs.”

1. print and submit your manuscript on white standard letter size paper, which is 8½ by 11 inches. In most of the rest of the English-speaking world, including the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, use A4 paper US Letter (8.5 × 11 in) or A4, as you choose. Proper Paper Size for Manuscript Submissions
2. Set one-inch margins all around—left, right, top, and bottom. 1-inch margins on all four sides. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
3. Set your font size to 12 points. For the font itself choose something standard and easily readable, like Times New Roman. Times New Roman, 12 pt, black. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
4. still prefer Courier New, a monospaced font that resembles typewriter output. You can use that too if you like Courier New instead, if you pick it. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
5. the full text of your story should be double-spaced. Double line spacing for the text. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
6. The first line of every paragraph should be indented one half-inch from the left margin. Do not place extra line spaces between paragraphs A 0.5-inch first-line indent; no blank lines between paragraphs (empty paragraphs in your file are dropped). Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
7. The text of your story should be left-aligned. Left-aligned text with a ragged right edge. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
8. Standard practice today is to put only one space between sentences. Runs of spaces become one space. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
9. To emphasize a specific word or phrase in your manuscript, do so with italics. Your italics stay italics (not underlined); bold stays bold. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
10. This header consists of the surname from your byline, one or two keywords from the title of your story, and the page number. It belongs in the upper-right corner for ready visibility. A running header in the upper-right corner: surname, short title, page number (a live page-number field). Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
11. Shunn / Format / 2 Written as Surname / Short title / page, the way the guide prints it. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
12. be sure to specify that the header itself should not appear on the first page. No header on the first page. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
13. If you want a scene break to appear in your story, center the symbol “#” on a line by itself. Every scene break in your file (***, * * *, #, ~~~, §, or two blank lines in a .txt) becomes a centred #. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
14. some writers choose to center the word “END” after the last line of text. A centred END after the last line, unless you untick it. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
15. Place your contact information in the upper-left corner of the first page, including your legal name, address, phone number, and email. Short story: your legal name and contact lines, single-spaced, top left of page one. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
16. In the upper-right corner of the first page, place an approximate word count. Short story: the rounded word count, top right of page one, on the line of your name. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
17. Get this number from your word processor, then round to the nearest hundred. The count is rounded to the nearest 100. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
18. If you’re edging into novella territory, round to the nearest 500. From 17,500 words, rounded to the nearest 500 instead. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
19. SFWA defines a novella as a work of fiction of between 17,500 and 40,000 words 17,500 words is where this tool starts rounding to 500 (the guide gives no exact point; this is its novella floor). Proper Novella Format
20. Place the full title of your story a third to halfway down the first page, centered on its own line. Short story: the title centred, 40% of the way down the text area of page one. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
21. Double-space once down and center your byline below the title. Short story: “by” and your byline name, centred on the next line. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
22. Double-space two more times down, and that’s where you’ll start the actual text of your story. Short story: one blank double-spaced line, then the text. Proper Manuscript Format, modern edition
23. In short story format for your novella, you would indicate new chapters simply by skipping a line, then centering the chapter header on its own line. Short story with chapters: a blank line, then the chapter title centred; no new page. Proper Novella Format
24. The title page will have your name and address in the upper-left corner, the title and your byline centered in the middle of the page, and an approximate word count centered at the bottom of the page. Novel: a separate title page laid out that way. When to Use a Separate Title Page
25. A Novel by Perry Slaughter Novel: the byline reads “A Novel by” and your byline name, as in the guide’s sample. Sample Novel Manuscript
26. The text then starts on the second page of the manuscript, and that page should be numbered 1. Novel: the title page has no header and is not counted; the first page of text is page 1. When to Use a Separate Title Page
27. each chapter begins on its own page. Novel: every chapter starts on a new page. Sample Novel Manuscript
28. Start the second chapter (and every subsequent chapter) on a new page on the same line where you started the first chapter. I start about halfway down the page Novel: every chapter title centred halfway down its page, all on the same line. Positioning Chapter Headers on the Page

What it cannot do

• Footnotes, endnotes, comments, images, text boxes, and your file's own headers and footers are not carried over. Tables come out as plain paragraphs, one per cell.
• Tracked changes: inserted text is kept, as if accepted, and deleted text is dropped. Accept or reject them in your word processor first if that is not what you want.
• Only italics and bold are kept. Underlining, small capitals, fonts, colours, centred or right-aligned lines, block quotations, poetry indents and lists become ordinary indented paragraphs. Italics set by a paragraph style in a .docx (a whole paragraph styled as a quotation) are not kept; italics on the words themselves are.
• Only the headings that start chapters become chapter headings. Other headings (Heading 2 inside a chapter split by Heading 1, say) become ordinary paragraphs.
• Chapters marked only by bold text, blank lines or section breaks are not found, so the whole text is one chapter; add a marker line or use Heading 1. A .md or .txt file has no page breaks to find.
• Novels and short stories only: no screenplay, stage play or poetry format. For a novella, choose Short story for a magazine and Novel for a book publisher, as the guide advises.
• The title lines on the first page are placed by measurement from the font's line height; your word processor may set them a line higher or lower.
• The .docx is checked by this page's own tests (every part is well-formed, every part is declared, every checksum matches) and by reading it back with this site's reader, which finds the same chapters, words and italics. It has not been checked in any particular word processor.
• Opening a .docx or .odt needs the browser's own unzipping (DecompressionStream with “deflate-raw”), as on the word counter: Chrome and Edge 103 or newer, Firefox 113, Safari 16.4. An older browser can still open .md, .txt and pasted text. The download is compressed where the browser can, and stored uncompressed where it cannot (a bigger file, the same document).
• One file at a time; a file over 200 MB is not opened.

Private by design

No account and no upload. The manuscript is read and the new .docx is built by this page, in your browser, with the browser's own zip tools; neither ever leaves your device. Your details are stored only if you tick the box, and only in this browser.