Manuscript formatter
Turn a Word, Markdown, or text file into standard manuscript format for agents and publishers. It runs in your browser, and your file is never uploaded.
Format your manuscript
What is standard manuscript format?
It is the plain layout agents and editors expect a submitted novel to arrive in. Nothing about it is decorative. Every choice makes the text easy to read, mark up, and estimate. The file you download has:
- 12-point Times New Roman, or Courier New if you choose it
- Double spacing, one-inch margins, and a ragged right edge
- A half-inch indent on each paragraph, except the first after a heading or scene break
- A header on every page reading surname, title, and page number
- A title page with your contact details and a rounded word count
- Each chapter starting on a new page, about a third of the way down
- A centered # between scenes, and END after the last line
Italics and bold carry over from your file. Other fonts, sizes, and indents do not.
Before you send it
Read the submission guidelines first. When an agency asks for something different, such as no title page or a different font, its instructions win.
Chapters are found from headings. In Word, that means the Heading 1 style; in Markdown, a line starting with #. A chapter title typed as ordinary bold text will not start a new page, so open the result and check the first few chapters.
Where these rules come from
The layout follows William Shunn's Proper Manuscript Format for novels, checked on September 26, 2026. Setting the opening paragraph flush is our choice; Shunn indents it, and either is accepted.
The formatter uses the same Word export as Tabularia, the writing app this site is for.
Try it on your own manuscript
Nothing is metered: as many projects as you like at any length, the outline and minimap to move through them, drafts and markup mode for revising, snapshots to return to, sheets and timelines beside the page, and export to DOCX, PDF, EPUB, HTML, Markdown, plain text and Fountain. Bring in what you have already written and read it back as a book.
The Cloud plan is $18 a month, or $172.80 a year, and adds backup, sync across your devices, sharing a manuscript for review, and publishing your work as a web page — the readers and collaborators you invite do not need a paid account of their own. Tabularia is in Public Beta and shipping steadily; the release notes record what has landed.