Free Obsidian Plugin
Beautifully formatted Manuscripts in One Click.
I spent an embarrassing amount of time reformatting manuscripts by hand. Every time I finished a draft, I'd open Word, switch the font, dial in double spacing, manually build the running header, type my address into the first page, calculate the word count, and on it goes. Even when I got around to making a template it didn't save me from twenty minutes of busywork making sure everything was perfect.
Switching to markdown was something i had been eyeing for a while. And the beauty of markdown is that it's predictable. So pretty soon after switching to Obsidian. I built this. Open the sidebar, hit Export, and a properly formatted .docx lands in your downloads folder, ready to go.
Watch: a walkthrough of the plugin in action.
What it does
The plugin implements William Shunn's Proper Manuscript Format, the industry standard for short fiction submissions. Every mechanical requirement below is handled without any input from you.
Font & size
Courier New, Courier, or Times New Roman at 12pt throughout
Spacing & indent
Double-spaced, ½-inch first-line indent, 1-inch margins
First-page header
Contact block left, word count right. Rounded to nearest 100.
Running header
Surname / Title / Page flush right from page 2 onwards
Title page
Bold centred title one-third down, byline below
Scene breaks
#, * * *, ---, *** all become centred #
Italics
*word* and _word_ become italic, or underline via toggle
Em dashes
-- converts to — in the output
Word count
Calculated from story text and rounded to the nearest 100
YAML frontmatter
Stripped before export. Tags and metadata stay in Obsidian.
Section labels
## Headings become bold centred text with an auto # break
Anonymous mode
Removes byline and surname from header for blind submissions
The sidebar
Open the exporter from the ribbon icon or Command Palette. Your details persist between sessions.
| Setting | Notes |
|---|---|
| Title | Used on the title page and in the running header |
| Author name | Legal name or pen name |
| Font | Courier New (default), Courier, or Times New Roman |
| Include address | Toggles the contact block on the first-page header |
| Abbreviate header title | For long story titles, set a shorter version for the running header |
| Show italics as underline | For markets that prefer underlining over italics |
| Anonymous manuscript | Removes byline and surname from header for blind submissions |
Writing conventions
The exporter handles all the formatting. These are the only conventions your source document needs to follow.
Separate paragraphs with a blank line. A single line break is treated as a continuation of the same paragraph. This is standard Obsidian behaviour.
The station was dark when Mara arrived. Nothing happened. She pressed it again.
Put a scene break marker on its own line with a blank line before and after it. Any of these work:
Last line of the scene. # First line of the next scene.
Also accepted: * * * and ---
Use single asterisks or underscores. Do not use **bold**. There is no bold in Shunn format and double asterisks will appear as literal asterisks in the output.
The ship was called the _Vashti_, and it had not been seen in four years.
Type two hyphens. The exporter converts them automatically.
She knew the answer--had known it for months. ↓ She knew the answer—had known it for months.
The exporter passes through whatever quotes are in your file. Enable Obsidian's smart quotes (Settings → Editor → Smart quotes) so curly quotes are used in the source. Straight quotes in the output are incorrect per the Shunn spec.
Shunn Export is free, open source, and available now.