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Preparing your manuscript in Word
By Lukas · updated
Kernsetzer reads a Word file by its styles, not by how the text looks. A line in Heading 1 is a chapter, whatever its size or font. A line that is only big and bold makes it guess, and you shouldn’t have to rely on a guess for something as basic as where a chapter starts.
The template
The quickest way in is my template. It has every style Kernsetzer reads, and each one holds a line that says what it’s for. Write over those lines and delete whatever your book doesn’t need.
Download the template (.docx, 5 KB)
It’s in English, on US Letter with 1-inch margins. The page size in Word makes no difference to the book: you choose the trim size later, in Kernsetzer. A German version on A4 is on the German page. I made it for Word on Windows and Mac and tested it in Word for Mac, which opens and saves it without complaint. LibreOffice, Pages and Google Docs open .docx files and should keep the styles, but I haven’t tried them yet.
Kernsetzer’s public beta starts in mid-November. Styles are worth setting up before then anyway: Word’s own navigation pane and table of contents work from the same headings.
Book templates
This template is for writing. If you’d rather lay out the book in Word itself and send Word’s PDF to KDP, take a book template instead, in 5 × 8, 5.5 × 8.5 or 6 × 9 in. Each has mirrored margins, running heads and page numbers set up, and the same styles as this one, so the book still imports into Kernsetzer later. The German page has two more, in 12 × 19 and 13.5 × 21.5 cm.
The styles
| Style | How | |
|---|---|---|
| Title, subtitle | Title, Subtitle | On the first page. |
| Author | Author | “by Your Name”. |
| Copyright page | Copyright | The page needs “©”, “Copyright”, “ISBN” or “All rights reserved” on it. |
| Dedication | Dedication | Kernsetzer reads it by the style, whatever the first word. |
| Epigraph | Epigraph | Any length. A line under it that starts with a dash is its source: “— Who said it”. On a page of its own before the first chapter, or right under a chapter heading. |
| Chapter | Heading 1 | Just the title, and Kernsetzer numbers the chapters. Or number them yourself: “Chapter 3”, “Chapter 3: The Crossing”. |
| Prologue, foreword, epilogue and the like | Heading 1 | Prologue, Foreword, Preface, Epilogue, Afterword, Acknowledgments and About the Author are recognised by name and get no number. |
| Sub-heading | Heading 2 | Inside a chapter. |
| Scene break | Scene Break | Three asterisks, * * *. Any short line of symbols does it: #, ~ ~ ~, ❦. |
| Block quote | Quote | Letters, signs, long quotations. |
| Poem, song | Verse | One stanza per paragraph, and Shift+Enter for each new line. |
| Caption | Caption | Right under its picture. |
| Italics, bold, small caps | Emphasis, Strong, Small Caps | Or Word’s own buttons: Ctrl+I and Ctrl+B (⌘I and ⌘B on a Mac) work just as well. |
| Footnotes | Word’s own | References › Insert Footnote. Endnotes work too. |
Word’s built-in styles are named in the language of its menus. In a German Word, Heading 1 is “Überschrift 1” and Quote is “Zitat”. It’s the same style underneath, and Kernsetzer reads it either way.
What to leave out
- The table of contents. Kernsetzer builds one from your headings and removes a typed or generated one.
- Page numbers, headers and footers. Kernsetzer sets its own.
- Page breaks. Kernsetzer starts every chapter on a new page and ignores page breaks inside the text.
- Empty lines and tabs for layout. No empty line between paragraphs, and no tab or spaces to indent. Several empty lines in a row are read as a scene break, so use a Scene Break line where you mean one.
- Text boxes and embedded objects. They’re skipped. Move their text into the manuscript.
- Tables. Each row becomes a paragraph, with its cells run together. A book table is better as a picture or as plain text.
Parts
If your book is divided into parts, give each part Heading 1, move the chapters down to Heading 2 and their sub-headings to Heading 3. Kernsetzer reads a part heading with or without a title of its own, “Part Two” as well as “Part Two: Arrival”.
Pictures
Put a picture on a line of its own, with its caption right under it in the Caption style. Its width carries over as a share of the text width, so a picture half as wide as the text in Word is half as wide in the book. A picture with Square or Tight wrapping goes beside the text. Use PNG or JPEG; EMF, WMF, TIFF and BMP pictures are left out. The alt text you give a picture in Word goes into the e-book.
A manuscript you already have
You don’t have to start from the template. Open your manuscript and:
- Click into each chapter title and give it Heading 1. Turn on the navigation pane (on the View tab) and your chapters appear as a list. That list is what Kernsetzer will see.
- Accept or reject tracked changes. Kernsetzer accepts any that are still there, and leaves comments out.
- Leave your italics alone. Underlined text becomes italics too, as in the standard manuscript format.
- Delete the table of contents and any page-number fields.
When you import the file, Kernsetzer lists what it noticed: a scene break it read from empty lines, a picture it left out, text it found before the first chapter. One note is always there if the manuscript has a title page, because Kernsetzer makes its own from the title and author and tells you so.
Next comes the shape of the book: choosing a trim size, then formatting the paperback for KDP. If your quotes and dashes came out straight, the quote and dash fixer mends them. Sign up for the beta to import your own manuscript when it opens.