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How to Set the Margins & Font for Novels

Computers make formatting a novel a simple task. In the days of typewriters, it took manually setting the paper stops, working the tab bar and a couple of presses of the space key to get the margins right. While the formatting for a novel manuscript hasn't changed through the years, computers allow for some flexibility in terms of font usage. The entire point of novel formatting is to make it easy for an editor to read on the page.

Things You'll Need

  • Computer
  • Word Processing Program
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Instructions

    • 1

      Open the word processing program you are using to write the novel.

    • 2

      Click on the tab in the menu bar that allows you to access the document formatting. The name of this tab will vary in different word processing programs. Some common names for it will be, "Format," "Document," or "Text."

    • 3

      Move the mouse to a heading that says "Margins," or something similar to it. There should be boxes that allow you to adjust the margins of the document. Set the Top/Bottom/Left/Right margins to 1-inch all the way around. The left margin should be justified. The right margin must remain ragged.

    • 4

      Click on the tab in the menu bar that allows you access to the "Font." This may be a tab, or a subheading under another tab.

    • 5

      Select a font and type size. The size should usually be set to 12. Courier and Courier New are the most traditional fonts. However, Times New Roman also is fairly accepted.

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