One of the biggest challenges these days with manuscript editing is dealing with poorly formatted submission files. It is the author’s responsibility to submit properly formatted word processor files. A few publishers will pay for the editing fees to fix bad files, but most usually pass along those fees to the authors.
If a publisher fixes a manuscript file without charging the author, that usually means the in-house editors will scrub the file through a plain text editor such as Notepad. Washing a file through any plain text editor is a severe process that removes all special formatting, including essential things like tabs, Italics, long dashes, page breaks, extra lines, centering, ellipses, embedded notes, font settings, and all symbols. In other words, the plain text washing process strips out everything except basic keyboard letters, numerals, and standard punctuation. It’s called plain text for a reason.
The only way to avoid having your file stripped to plain text is to provide a properly formatted submission file. Manuscript files should be created in the simplest format possible, so the file will transport across the most platforms and open cleanly in the most word processors. Here are a few tips on creating a simple manuscript file.
FORMAT SETTINGS:
• Most word processors now support the DOCX format. If there are any issues with sharing a document with editors and publishers, the safest file format to use is ODF (Open Document Format), as it moves more smoothly across platforms.
• Set the PAGE SIZE at 8.5″ x 11″ (standard letter) with 1.0″ margins all around.
• Set the default FONT to standard Times New Roman size-12 (TNR-12). This must include the whole document, including the Header and the Footer. There should be no other fonts encoded in the file!
• Set the body text to JUSTIFIED (not ragged right).
• Set a LEFT TAB at 0.5″ (1/2 inch) in the body text.
• Adjust the PARAGRAPH setting for 1-line space with no extra space between paragraphs and disable both the “keep with” and “widow/orphan” settings. Apply the 1-line space rule to the whole document.
• Turn off all smart tags and any other types of style codes.
• Leave the Footer blank, but make sure it’s set to TNR-12 centered or justified.
• Make sure the Header is set to TNR-12 justified. Set a RIGHT TAB at the far right margin. On the left add your document information, such as: MY WORK by Jane Doe [08/03/2022]. Hit the tab and then set the page numbers on the right, such as: # of ###.
If you cannot format your own manuscript file, then you will need to find someone to do it for you. It can take several hours to format a medium-sized fiction manuscript and much longer for large manuscripts (of 90,000 words or more). Since most editors charge by the hour, paying to have your file formatted can be very expensive.
If you don’t want to do your own formatting or for any reason cannot do it, then find an editor you trust to format all of your files prior to submission. Producing a properly formatted DOCX or ODF file requires some word processor expertise. Not a lot, but enough to handle the basics for publishing submission.
If you use MS Word, be sure its default template (i.e. the settings for any new file) is reset to the above basic rules. Free word processors that work very well include Open Office Writer and Office Libre. Open source programs generally use the default ODF (Open Document Format) file type, which will import across all platforms with the least amount of file errors. A very good word processor alternative for MS Windows is Atlantis Word Processor, which is affordable, easy to install, and easy to use.
[Copyright 2015-2022 Terri Branson]
You must be logged in to post a comment.