It’s an exciting step to send your manuscript to your editor for editing. If you’ve ever wondered what the ideal way to format your manuscript is for this stage, here are some tips, known as the Benton Format. However, if you’ve already formatted your manuscript a different way, don’t worry. I’m flexible and have happily edited manuscripts with other formats and fonts.
Font:
12-point New Times Roman. This is a serif font which makes them easier for your editor to read, and the font size is also easy to read at typical zoom levels. Other fonts that provide similar benefits are Garamond, Lora, and Georgia.
Margins:
One-inch margins on all sides.
Spacing:
1.15 or 1.5 line spacing makes it easier for the editor to read.
Paragraphs:
Indent the first line of each paragraph by .5” to make it easy to see paragraphs. Use paragraph settings to achieve this, not the TAB key.
Bonus tip:
Avoid using multiple fonts in your manuscript, for things like text messages or signs. I will recommend ways to make these items stand out in your manuscript without introducing the potential tech headaches of multiple fonts.
Don’t sweat it.
These tips can make things easy for your editor. But if your manuscript already has different formatting, don’t worry. Feel free to submit it to me the way it is, and I’ll let you know if there’s anything we need to adjust before the editing or proofreading pass.