A Guide to Formatting Your Manuscript – Page 3

Importance of Defining Levels of Headings

Selecting strategic places within your manuscript to break up text and place headings is one of the most important parts of organizing your text. It’s also important to format headings consistently throughout your document. If you don’t, our production team may not be able to differentiate between headings and subheadings to properly organize your book.

Luckily, Microsoft Word Styles can help. You can use heading options, found in the Styles panel, to easily organize your content:

Use Heading 1 for main headings, Heading 2 for a subtopic beneath your main heading, and Heading 3 for a subtopic of Heading 2. We suggest that you do not use Heading 4 or beyond. This will ensure the hierarchy of your manuscript is clear. More than four levels of headings outlined in your table of contents can get quite messy.

If you have any questions regarding your hierarchy of topics and the use of headings, contact your project editor.

Applying Heading Styles

In the image below, you can see the first heading uses the Heading 1 style.

Similarly, the second heading uses the Heading 2 style.

Within Word, when you place your cursor within a line of text and then click on a particular style in the Styles panel, the text will reformat according to the style selected.

As you format your manuscript, apply styles to headings based on content hierarchy.