Definition
Manuscript format
Manuscript format is the plain submission layout — double-spaced, 12 pt, one-inch margins, indented paragraphs, no styling. It is deliberately not book design, and it is not what a reader should ever see.
The convention exists to be read and marked by editors, so it is uniform and unlovely on purpose. The step authors miss is that a manuscript must be undone before it can be typeset: double spacing removed, tabs and manual spaces replaced by real paragraph indents, forced page breaks between chapters replaced by styles, and every direct format stripped. A clean manuscript formats in minutes; one full of manual spacing fights every tool it meets.
Related tools & guides
Front matter, chapter openers and scene breaks, set for you
Ceeryo generates the half-title, title and copyright pages, opens chapters on the right-hand page with the running head suppressed, and turns your blank lines and '* * *' into scene breaks — from the manuscript as you wrote it.