Import a manuscript
If youâve already written some or all of the book somewhere else, you donât need to paste it in chapter by chapter. Import the file and Galley splits it into chapters for you.
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name.
He waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner.
* * *
âNow, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.â
Chapter stages
Draft â Revised â Final
Every chapter carries its stage, so the sidebar tells you where the book actually is at a glance.
How to do it
- Open the New book window. On the dashboard, click New book , then choose the Import tab.
- Choose your file. Pick a
.docx,.mdor.txtfile. Galley reads it in your browser. - Check the chapters. Galley lists the chapters it found, with a word count for each and a total. If the split looks wrong, fix the headings in your file and choose it again.
- Name the book and create it. The title is filled in from the file name. Change it if you want, pick a trim size, and click Create book .
How it decides where chapters start
A new chapter starts at every top-level heading in a Word file (the Heading 1 style), and at any
short line that reads like a chapter title: âChapter 1â, âChapter Twoâ, âPrologueâ, âPart Twoâ, âEpilogueâ or
âInterludeâ. A prologue, epilogue or interlude comes in as one, without a chapter number. Anything before the first
chapter becomes its own chapter called âOpeningâ, so a note at the top isnât lost. In a Markdown file, a line
starting with a single # starts a chapter.
If your chapters are only marked by a page break or a row of asterisks, Galley wonât see them. Add a heading to each one in Word (the Heading 1 style is easiest), save, and import again.
Other file types
Galley imports Word (.docx), Markdown and plain text. For anything else, save a copy as .docx first:
- Pages: File â Export To â Word.
- Google Docs: File â Download â Microsoft Word (.docx).
- LibreOffice (.odt): File â Save As, and pick .docx.
- Old Word files (.doc): open in Word and Save As .docx.
- Scrivener: compile to a plain .docx first. The steps are in getting a Scrivener project into Word.
If you choose one of these by mistake, Galley tells you how to convert it instead of importing a broken file.
Good to know
- Italics and bold come across. Fonts, sizes and spacing donât, because the bookâs design takes over. Thatâs the point: the trim and typeface you pick are what it prints in.
- Nothing is saved until you click Create book, so you can try a file, look at the split, and cancel.
- Already have the book in Galley and got a revised file back from an editor? Use Import manuscript in the Toolkit instead. It merges the new file into the book chapter by chapter.
Next
Once itâs in, set the trim, typeface and chapter openings in book design, and move chapters around in structure. The rest of starting out is in your first book.