Let me guess.
You imported your manuscript into Vellum, expected magic… and something looks wrong.
Maybe chapter titles are weird.
Spacing feels off.
Your table of contents is acting possessed.
Or your EPUB preview looks fine but the print version suddenly explodes into blank pages.
Yeah. Happens constantly.
After formatting hundreds of books in Vellum, I can tell you something reassuring:
The problem is almost never Vellum.
It’s usually the manuscript you imported.
Vellum is brutally literal. It formats exactly what you give it. If the file has hidden junk—extra styles, weird spacing, broken headings—Vellum will faithfully reproduce the chaos.
Once you understand that, everything gets easier.
Let’s walk through the issues I see most often.
The #1 Reason Formatting Breaks: Your Word File Is Dirty
Almost every formatting disaster starts in Microsoft Word or Google Docs.
People spend months writing a book. During that time they:
- paste text from websites
- copy sections between files
- change fonts repeatedly
- manually adjust spacing
- hit Enter ten times to move text down a page
All that leaves hidden formatting debris.
When you import that into Vellum, it becomes visible.
Classic symptoms:
- giant gaps between paragraphs
- chapter titles not recognized
- random page breaks
- inconsistent indentation
- scenes that won’t separate correctly
Here’s the fix most professionals use.
Paste your entire manuscript into a brand-new blank document using “Paste Without Formatting.”
In Word:
- Select all text
- Copy
- Open a brand new document
- Paste using Keep Text Only
This strips the junk.
Then rebuild only the basics:
- Chapter titles
- Scene breaks
- italics and bold
Nothing else.
Vellum handles the rest.
Chapter Headings Not Recognized? This Is Why
Vellum detects chapters based on structure, not decoration.
If your chapter title looks like this:
CHAPTER ONE
But it’s just normal paragraph text, Vellum might not recognize it.
Instead, Vellum expects consistent chapter markers.
The safest approach:
Chapter 1
or
CHAPTER 1
Each on its own line.
No extra spaces. No manual page breaks above it.
Once imported, Vellum lets you convert that line into a Chapter Heading with one click.
People often overcomplicate this part.
Plain text works best.
Scene Breaks That Refuse To Format Correctly
You’ve probably seen this.
You add three asterisks like this:
***
Then Vellum turns it into something strange… or ignores it.
That usually happens because the break isn’t isolated.
Correct scene breaks look like this:
Paragraph text.***Next paragraph begins here.
Notice the spacing.
One blank line above. One below.
No tabs. No spaces before the asterisks.
Vellum then converts that into proper ornamental breaks for EPUB, Kindle, and print.
The Blank Page Problem in Print Books
This one drives people insane.
Everything looks perfect in ebook preview. Then the print version shows blank pages.
Why?
Because print books follow physical rules.
In traditional book layout:
- New chapters start on the right-hand page
- Those are called recto pages
So if the previous chapter ends on the right side, the layout engine inserts a blank left page.
Nothing is broken.
That’s professional typography.
You can change it if you want, but most authors leave it because readers expect it.
The Quick Diagnostic I Teach New Formatters
When someone says “Vellum messed up my formatting,” I run a simple check.
Three things.
1. Turn on hidden formatting marks in Word
Look for:
- double spaces
- extra paragraph breaks
- tabs used for indentation
2. Check paragraph styles
If every paragraph uses a different style, clean them.
You should really only have:
- Normal text
- Chapter headings
That’s it.
3. Remove manual formatting
Delete things like:
- manual page breaks
- custom margins
- custom fonts
Vellum handles those automatically.
Ebook vs Print Formatting: Why They Behave Differently
New authors expect both versions to behave the same.
They don’t.
| Feature | Ebook (Kindle / EPUB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Page size | Fluid | Fixed |
| Fonts | Reader chooses | Publisher chooses |
| Page numbers | Dynamic | Static |
| Layout control | Limited | Precise |
That’s why something that looks perfect in Kindle preview may shift slightly in print.
Different rules. Different engine.
Vellum handles both surprisingly well—but it can’t override physics.
The Weirdest Edge Case I Ever Saw
One author sent me a manuscript where every paragraph began with four spaces instead of proper indentation.
Looked normal in Word.
Absolute disaster in Vellum.
Why? Because Vellum treats spaces as literal characters.
The fix?
Find and replace.
Search for:
(space)(space)(space)(space)
Replace with nothing.
Then let Vellum handle indentation automatically.
Took five seconds. Solved a problem the author had been fighting for two days.
Fonts: The Thing People Obsess Over (That Barely Matters)
Authors often ask:
“Which font should I use before importing?”
Answer: None of them.
Use something boring while writing.
Times New Roman. Arial. Doesn’t matter.
Vellum replaces the font with professional book typography anyway.
So if you spent hours tweaking fonts in Word… that work disappears.
And honestly? That’s a good thing.
When Vellum Import Completely Falls Apart
Rare, but it happens.
Usually caused by:
- PDFs converted into Word
- Scrivener exports with odd formatting
- text copied from websites
- old DOC files from early Word versions
The nuclear fix:
- Copy the entire manuscript
- Paste it into plain text editor like TextEdit or Notepad
- Copy again
- Paste into a new Word file
That removes everything except raw text.
You then reapply:
- italics
- bold
- chapter headings
Takes maybe fifteen minutes.
But it guarantees a clean import.
The One Thing I Wish Every Author Knew
Formatting isn’t design.
It’s structure.
If your manuscript has clean structure—chapters, paragraphs, scene breaks—Vellum will produce a beautiful book almost automatically.
If the structure is messy, no formatting software can rescue it.
Think of it like building a house.
Bad foundation? Walls crack.
Clean structure? Everything fits.
Once authors understand that, Vellum stops feeling mysterious. It becomes exactly what it was designed to be.
A very fast finishing tool for manuscripts that are already organized properly.
And when the manuscript is clean?
You can generate a professional EPUB, Kindle file, and print PDF in under five minutes.
That’s the moment people realize why so many publishers rely on it.