BYTETOOLS

Standard Manuscript Formatter

Turn pasted prose into a standard manuscript format PDF — Courier 12, double spaced, one-inch margins, title page, running header and scene breaks.

95
Words
100
Title-page count
2
Manuscript pages
2
Chapters detected

Page 1 preview — Courier 12, 65 characters per line, 27 double-spaced lines










                           CHAPTER ONE


     The letter arrived on a Tuesday, which was the first thing
that made her suspicious. Nothing important had ever arrived on a
Tuesday.
     She turned it over twice before opening it, as if the back
of an envelope had ever told anyone anything.

                                #

     By the time the kettle boiled she had read it four times,
and the words had stopped meaning anything at all.

Header on every page: Writer / THE TUESDAY LETTER / 1 · 1 scene break rendered as a centred #.

Output follows the standard manuscript conventions editors expect: Courier 12 pt, double spacing, one-inch margins, half-inch first-line indents, no blank lines between paragraphs, a centred # for scene breaks and a surname / title / page header. The PDF is built in your browser with pdf-lib and never uploaded. Courier is a WinAnsi font, so curly quotes and em dashes are converted to their typewriter equivalents automatically.

What is the Standard Manuscript Formatter?

Standard Manuscript Formatter takes plain prose and typesets it the way agents and editors expect to receive it: Courier 12 point, double spacing, one-inch margins, half-inch first-line indents with no blank lines between paragraphs, and a centred # wherever you mark a scene break.

  • Courier 12 pt, double spaced, one-inch margins — 65 characters per line
  • Title page with contact block and a word count rounded to 100 or 1,000
  • Running “Surname / TITLE / page” header on every manuscript page
  • Blank lines between paragraphs replaced with half-inch first-line indents
  • Chapters detected automatically and started one third down a new page
  • Live monospace preview of page one before you export

How to use the Standard Manuscript Formatter

  1. 1

    Fill in the title, your legal name, an optional pen name and the contact block for the title page.

  2. 2

    Paste your manuscript, separating paragraphs with a blank line and marking scene breaks with a line containing only #, *** or ---.

  3. 3

    Choose US Letter or A4 and how the title-page word count should be rounded.

  4. 4

    Tick or untick the title page, new page per chapter and one-third-down chapter titles.

  5. 5

    Check the page-one preview, then click “Download manuscript PDF”.

About the Standard Manuscript Formatter

Standard Manuscript Formatter takes plain prose and typesets it the way agents and editors expect to receive it: Courier 12 point, double spacing, one-inch margins, half-inch first-line indents with no blank lines between paragraphs, and a centred # wherever you mark a scene break.

It builds a title page carrying your contact block and the word count rounded to the nearest hundred, puts a “Surname / TITLE / page” header on every manuscript page, and starts each chapter one third of the way down a fresh page. A live preview shows page one before you export.

The PDF is generated in your browser with pdf-lib and saved straight to your device — your manuscript is never uploaded. Courier is a WinAnsi font, so curly quotes and em dashes are converted to typewriter equivalents automatically.

Frequently asked questions

What is standard manuscript format?

It is the plain, uniform layout fiction editors have asked for since the typewriter era: a monospaced 12 point font, double spacing, one-inch margins, indented paragraphs, no extra space between them and a header identifying the author and title on every page.

How many words fit on a standard manuscript page?

Roughly 250. Courier 12 gives exactly 65 characters per line on a 6.5 inch text column, and double spacing gives about 25 to 27 lines per page, which is where the traditional 250-words-a-page estimate comes from.

Why is the word count rounded on the title page?

Because nobody needs the exact figure — an editor wants to know the scale of the book. Rounding to the nearest hundred is conventional for short fiction and the nearest thousand for novels, and both options are available here.

Should I use Courier or Times New Roman?

Courier is the traditional and safest choice for fiction submissions because its fixed width makes length predictable. Always follow the specific guidelines of the agent or publisher you are submitting to — they override any general convention.

What happens to my curly quotes and em dashes?

They are converted to straight quotes and hyphens. The PDF standard Courier font cannot encode typographic punctuation, and converting is what keeps the file from failing to build. It is also what a typewriter-era manuscript looked like.

Is my manuscript uploaded to a server?

No. The PDF is assembled entirely in your browser with pdf-lib and downloaded directly. Your text never leaves your device.

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