Send your manuscript

Step 2 on your Factory page. You send one .docx. Any editor that saves one will do (LibreOffice, Google Docs, Pages and the rest). Writing in Google Docs? You can link the Doc instead. Uploading is free: send a new version every time you revise.

What the factory reads

The factory reads the name of each paragraph's style, never its look. It ignores the fonts, sizes and spacing in your file and sets everything in the book's typography. A style is a label that says what a paragraph is.

The one must-have

Every chapter title in Heading 1. That's how the factory finds your chapters, builds the Contents and starts each chapter on a new page. Sub-heads go in Heading 2 and Heading 3. If your book has parts, Heading 1 is the part and Heading 2 the chapter (set this in the transmittal).

Everything else can stay in your editor's default style (Normal). Italic, bold, footnotes and links come through as you made them, and your editor's own styles for those (Footnote Text, Hyperlink and the like) need nothing from you.

Factory styles, when you need them

When a paragraph is a quotation, a poem, code or a scene break, give it the matching factory style, or a marker (below), so it's set the way that kind of paragraph should be. The factory knows these thirteen:

Your own styles (optional)

Add a style of your own only when your book has a kind of paragraph none of the thirteen covers: letters, recipes, a narrator's asides, field notes. Declare it in the transmittal's Custom styles. Use the name it has in your file, and pick the factory style it's closest to (based on). The factory sets it like that style, with any difference you choose, such as an indent or a bigger gap.

Don't declare:

• the thirteen factory styles above;
• your editor's built-in styles (Title, Footnote Text, Hyperlink, List Paragraph and so on);
• plain bold or italic.

Inspect tells you when your file uses a style the factory doesn't know.

Images, tables and captions

• Images: one per paragraph, placed inline. An image prints at the same share of the text width it has in your file (an image half as wide as your page's text prints half as wide as the book's text), never wider than the text and never taller than about four-fifths of the page. To choose a size, start the image paragraph or its caption with [[figure full]], [[figure two-thirds]], [[figure half]], [[figure third]], [[figure page]] (on a page of its own) or [[figure as placed]] (the share it has in your file, even when the book prints images full width). The studio can also change an image's size after upload; you don't need to send the file again.
• Captions: type a figure caption as an ordinary paragraph directly below the image, starting "Figure 1.", and a table caption directly above the table, starting "Table 1." (your editor's Caption style works too, and so does starting the paragraph with [[caption]]). Captions print exactly as you typed them; the factory adds no numbers, so yours match "see figure 2" in your text.

Chapter subtitles

Give a chapter's subtitle the Subtitle style, in the paragraph right after the chapter title. It prints under the title on the chapter's first page. A Title or Subtitle before the first chapter is left out: the title page is set from your transmittal.

No styles? Use markers

Some editors (Google Docs, for one) can't hold custom paragraph styles. Start the paragraph with a marker instead:

[[quote]] The rest of the paragraph…
[[verse]] · [[epigraph]] · [[code]] · [[break]] · [[signature]] · [[caption]]

Close a run of several paragraphs with the matching end marker, e.g. [[/code block]]. A custom style name works too: [[style:Letter]]. The factory removes the markers and sets the real style. Inspect lists every marker it found.

Or start from the template

When your transmittal is final, the factory generates an authoring template (.docx, or .odt for LibreOffice) with every style already set up for your book. Download it from Template (.docx) ↓ at the top of the transmittal. It's optional, and the markers do the same job.

Upload

1. Title and author are filled in for you; check them.
2. Drop the file on the upload box, or choose it. .docx only, up to 50 MB.
3. Choose Upload manuscript. The newest upload becomes your current manuscript, the one that is inspected and built. Earlier uploads fold under N earlier files, so you can see what changed when.

Then Inspect it.

Or link a Google Doc

If your manuscript is a Google Doc, you can link it instead of downloading and uploading a file.

1. In Google Docs choose Share → General access → Anyone with the link (Viewer is enough), then Copy link.
2. Paste the link under Or link a Google Doc and choose Fetch from Google Docs.

The factory fetches a .docx copy of the Doc and treats it exactly like an upload: the same checks, the same 50 MB limit, and it becomes your current manuscript. Your Doc isn't changed. In your list of files it shows fetched … · from Google Docs, with a link back to the Doc.

When you've revised the Doc, choose Refresh from Google Docs. That fetches a new copy as a new upload, so the earlier copies stay listed and you can see what changed when. The button shows while your current manuscript came from a Doc. Google Docs can't hold the factory's custom styles, so use markers for quotations, verse, code and the rest.

If the link is refused:

• "That Doc isn't shared": Google wants a sign-in to open it. Choose Share → General access → Anyone with the link, then try again.
• "That's a Google Sheets link" (or Slides, or a Drive file): link the Doc itself. Open it in Google Docs and copy the address from the address bar; it starts with https://docs.google.com/document/d/.
• "We couldn't find that Doc": it was deleted, or the link was cut short. Copy it again.
• "We couldn't reach Google Docs just now": try again in a minute. If it keeps failing, download the Doc (File → Download → .docx) and upload the file.

If the upload is refused:

• "That's not a .docx file": the name doesn't end in .docx. Save or export it from your editor as a .docx; the message says where to find that in Google Docs, Pages and LibreOffice.
• "That file's name ends in .docx, but it isn't a .docx inside": it's probably a web page, a PDF or an older .doc that was renamed. Open it in your editor, save or export it as a .docx, and upload that.
• "That file is too large to upload here": it's over 50 MB. Email the studio and we'll take it another way.

Cover (optional)

Until you add your own, every book gets a [jdbb] studio house cover: a cover set in type from your title and author, like an advance reader copy. It goes on the EPUB automatically. Its buttons switch between a Dark and a Light background and turn the ADVANCE READER COPY strip on or off (ARC strip on / off). Download print wrap (PDF) gives you its back, spine and front for a printer.

To use your own, choose Add your own cover: JPEG or PNG, portrait, at least 1600 × 2400 px, up to 10 MB. It goes on the EPUB from your next build. Replace cover image swaps it; Remove puts the house cover back. The print PDF is the interior only; your printer takes your cover as a separate file.