---
title: "Import a manuscript"
description: "Bring a Word, Markdown or plain text manuscript into Galley. It splits into chapters on your headings and Chapter lines, and shows you the chapters before anything is saved."
source: https://usegalley.com/docs/import-a-manuscript
---
# Import a manuscript

If you’ve already written some or all of the book somewhere else, you don’t need to paste it in
chapter by chapter. Import the file and Galley splits it into chapters for you.

*The Galley chapter sidebar showing front matter, two parts of chapters with draft, revised and final stages, back matter, and add-chapter, add-part and bin buttons.*

After an import, each chapter is its own row in the sidebar, with its word count.

## How to do it

1. **Open the New book window.** On the dashboard, click **New book**, then
choose the **Import** tab.
2. **Choose your file.** Pick a `.docx`, `.md` or `.txt` file. Galley
reads it in your browser.
3. **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.
4. **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: “Chapter 1”, “Chapter Two”, “Prologue”, “Part Two”, “Epilogue” or
“Interlude”. A prologue, epilogue or interlude comes in as one, without a chapter number. Anything before the first
chapter becomes its own chapter called “Opening”, so a note at the top isn’t 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 won’t 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 → Export To → Word.
- **Google Docs:** File → Download → Microsoft Word (.docx).
- **LibreOffice (.odt):** File → 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](https://usegalley.com/blog/scrivener-to-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 don’t, because the book’s design takes over. That’s 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 it’s in, set the trim, typeface and chapter openings in [book design](https://usegalley.com/docs/book-design), and
move chapters around in [structure](https://usegalley.com/docs/structure). The rest of starting out is in
[your first book](https://usegalley.com/docs/your-first-book).

[PreviousYour first book](https://usegalley.com/docs/your-first-book) [NextSeries, editions & translations](https://usegalley.com/docs/series-and-translations)

## Go on, write a page in it.

Opens straight into a book. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for.

[Open the demo](https://demo.usegalley.com) [See what €199 gets you](https://usegalley.com/buy?from=site)