Adding extra line breaks after paragraphs (for when you need to go from double-spaced to single-spaced, but with extra space between paragraphs–a very common style for query letters.).

Replacing two spaces after the end of a sentence with one space.

Fix all of that.įind and Replace can also fix most of your manuscript formatting issues, such as: You can’t tell when the space after a word is italicized, for example, but you’ll definitely realize it when it’s underlined. You’ll probably want to do a quick scan through the file to clean it up.

Once you’re done, there’ll be no italic font left in your story–just the stuff you underlined before.

This will put your entire story in italics, then remove it all.

To remove the italics, select all of the text in the file ( shortcut: Control+A).

This will make your italic font underlined, but it’ll still be italic.

Under “Underline Style,” select one underline, with the thinnest line.

Now move your cursor to the “Replace With” box.

Now your “Find Box” should say “ Find what: Format: Font: Italic.”

In the “Font Style” box, select “Italic.”.

At the bottom, select Format, then “Font…”.

First, open Word’s Find and Replace tool ( shortcut: Control+H).

Thankfully, I just discovered that Word’s search and replace feature will do this for you. So what was I going to do? Reformat the entire story by hand? Today I submitted a story to a place that wanted just that. And while most folks are fine with 12pt Times New Roman and italics (which I strongly prefer), you occasionally find folks who really want the “Courier New + underlines instead of italics” variant. When you submit something for publication–be it a novel or a short story–you’ll probably have to put it in Standard Manuscript Format.

Microsoft word find and replace italics