# Bring a Word manuscript into InkSpine Click Import on the Welcome screen, pick your .docx file, choose which Word heading level marks chapters, and review the chapter list before importing. - - Published 29 October 2026 - Updated 29 October 2026 ## 1. Check your .docx file before you start InkSpine imports `.docx` files directly and turns a single monolithic Word document into a structured book with separate chapters, parts, front matter, and footnotes. You do not need to clean up fonts, line spacing, or margins beforehand—InkSpine reads the structure of the document rather than its page geometry. 1. Make sure the file is saved as `.docx` (Word's default format since 2007). If you have an older `.doc` file, open it in Word, LibreOffice, or Apple Pages and choose **Save As → Word Document (.docx)**. 2. Check how your chapters are marked. If your chapter titles use Word's built-in heading styles (`Heading 1`, `Heading 2`, or localized styles such as `Titre 1` or `Überschrift 1`), InkSpine detects them automatically. If your manuscript separates chapters with manual page breaks instead of heading styles, InkSpine can split at page breaks too. ## 2. Start the Import wizard You can bring a Word manuscript into InkSpine from the Welcome screen or from inside an open project: 1. On the **Welcome** screen, click **Import**. (From inside an open project, click **Import book…** on the Dashboard instead.) 2. Click **Choose file…** and pick your `.docx` manuscript, or drag the `.docx` file onto the wizard window. ![InkSpine’s Welcome screen: a list of recent projects, one each in Fiction, Memoir and Non-fiction, beside the Start my own, Import and Open buttons](https://inkspine.app/guide-welcome-light.webp) *Start from Import on the Welcome screen to turn an existing .docx manuscript into a new InkSpine project.* > **Adding a book or a single chapter to an open project** > > If you already have a project open, click **Import book…** on the **Dashboard** and tick **Add to open project** to import a second novel into the same series. InkSpine Free holds one book per project, so if your open project already has a book, ticking **Add to open project** opens an upgrade prompt and the import goes into a new project instead. To bring a `.docx` file into your current book as a single new chapter, drag the file straight onto the open manuscript canvas. ## 3. Choose how chapters and parts are split On the **Options** step (`Choose › Options › Preview › Import`), InkSpine inspects your document and preselects the heading levels that best match its structure: 1. Confirm or edit the **Book title**. 2. Set **Chapters start at**: - Pick the heading level (for example `At Heading 2`) that marks your chapters. Only levels your document actually contains are listed, and next to each one InkSpine shows how many chapters that choice will produce. - If your document has no heading styles but does have page breaks, pick **At page breaks** to start a new chapter at every manual page break. Choose **Don't split — one chapter** to keep the whole file together. 3. Set **Parts** if your book is divided into parts, acts, or books. When a `.docx` uses `Heading 1` for parts (`Part I: The North`) and `Heading 2` for chapters, InkSpine preselects `Heading 1` for **Parts** and `Heading 2` for **Chapters start at**. Any epigraph or introductory prose written directly under a part heading becomes that part's own page in the sidebar. 4. Pick **What are you writing?** (**Fiction**, **Memoir & life writing**, or **Non-fiction & research**) and choose the **Save to** parent folder on your drive. ![InkSpine’s Import wizard on the preview step: a Word manuscript split into two parts and six chapters with word counts, and the options for where chapters and parts start](https://inkspine.app/guide-import-light.webp) *On the Preview step, inspect the detected chapters and word counts, rename or reorder rows, and check the Before you import summary.* ## 4. Review the Preview list and finish the import Click **Preview** to review the chapter list before InkSpine creates your project folder: 1. **Rename, reorder, or exclude chapters.** Click any chapter title to edit it inline, drag rows by their left-hand handle to change the reading order, or click **×** to exclude an appendix or scratch section you do not want in the manuscript. 2. **Read the Before you import summary.** InkSpine tells you up front how every part of the Word file will be handled: - **Front matter:** Any text that appears before the first chapter heading (such as a title page, copyright notice, or dedication) is saved automatically as a front-matter page so nothing at the top of your `.docx` is lost. - **Carried across:** Bold, italic, headings, bulleted and numbered lists, block quotes, links, and Word footnotes are turned into [clean Markdown](https://inkspine.app/blog/why-your-book-lives-in-plain-files) (footnotes become `[^1]` notes). - **Adjusted elements:** Word endnotes come across as footnotes, and anything plain Markdown does not carry—underlined text, tables, embedded images, text boxes—is named in the notice, so you know what to rebuild or re-add (for example, as an in-text figure) after the import. 3. Click the import button (it reads, for example, **Import 24 chapters**) to write the project to disk and open it. For a closer look at how working in InkSpine differs from drafting in a word processor, see [InkSpine vs Microsoft Word](https://inkspine.app/vs/word) and the [feature overview](https://inkspine.app/#features). ## In InkSpine - **Welcome → Import**: Starts a new project from a Word (.docx), Markdown, plain-text or other manuscript file. - **Dashboard → Import book…**: Imports a .docx manuscript into a new project or adds a book to an open series. - **Drop .docx onto the canvas**: Adds a single Word document as a new chapter inside the currently open book. ## Questions ### Does InkSpine import older .doc files from Word 97–2003? InkSpine imports .docx files, along with .md, .txt, .rtf, .odt and .epub files. If your draft is an older .doc file, open it in Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, or Pages and save a copy as .docx first. ### What if my Word document uses page breaks instead of Heading styles for chapters? When a document has page breaks but no heading styles, the Import wizard's Chapters start at dropdown offers At page breaks, which splits the document at every manual page break. Choose Don't split — one chapter to bring the whole file in as one chapter. ### Can I import a single Word file as one chapter inside an existing book? Yes. Open the book in the editor and drag the .docx file from Finder or Explorer straight onto the manuscript canvas to add it as a single new chapter. ## Related reading - [Move your book from Scrivener](https://inkspine.app/guides/move-from-scrivener): Compile your Scrivener draft to a Word (.docx) file, run InkSpine's Import wizard to split chapters by heading, and bring your notes into Worldbuilding. - [Export an EPUB for KDP](https://inkspine.app/guides/export-epub-for-kdp): Open Export (⌘E / Ctrl+E), add your book details and cover, preview the Ebook for KDP preset at Kindle size, and click Export (requires InkSpine Core). - [Why your book lives in plain files](https://inkspine.app/blog/why-your-book-lives-in-plain-files): InkSpine stores your book as a folder of plain Markdown chapters and JSON notes on your computer, so you can read and open your manuscript anywhere.