Fix Word Import Issues Before Opening Vellum

Vellum is particular about what it wants. It scans your Word document looking for specific signals: page breaks before chapters, heading styles on chapter titles, blank lines for scene breaks. When your manuscript uses different conventions, Vellum guesses. It guesses wrong.

The fix is simple. Before you open Vellum, spend twenty minutes preparing your Word file. Clean imports save hours of manual fixes later. This guide covers every formatting issue that causes import problems and shows you exactly how to prevent them.

Why Your Import Went Wrong

Vellum doesn't read your manuscript like a human does. It parses your document looking for structural markers. When those markers are missing, inconsistent, or formatted in ways Vellum doesn't expect, your clean manuscript becomes a mess of untitled elements, merged chapters, and misplaced scene breaks.

The most common problems fall into three categories: chapter detection failures, accidental chapter creation, and formatting that Vellum strips out. Each has specific causes and specific fixes.

The Untitled Chapter Problem

You open Vellum after importing and see a dozen "Untitled" elements scattered through your chapter list. What happened?

Vellum creates a new chapter element whenever it encounters eight or more consecutive blank lines. Writers often use extra line breaks for visual spacing between scenes or to create page gaps in their Word file. Vellum interprets each cluster of blank lines as a chapter boundary.

The solution: remove all unnecessary blank lines from your manuscript. If you use blank lines for visual spacing between scenes, replace them with a single blank line. Vellum treats one blank line as a scene break, not a chapter break. If you have sections that genuinely need more visual separation, add that spacing inside Vellum after import.

To find hidden blank lines in Word, click the Show/Hide button (the pilcrow symbol: ¶) in your toolbar. This reveals every paragraph mark in your document. Look for clusters of paragraph marks with nothing between them. Delete the extras until you have no more than one blank line in any sequence.

Chapter Detection: What Vellum Needs

Vellum looks for two signals to identify chapter starts: page breaks and heading styles. The combination matters. A page break alone isn't enough. A heading style alone isn't enough. Vellum wants both.

The Page Break Requirement

Every chapter in your manuscript should begin immediately after a page break. Not a collection of blank lines that push text to the next page. Not a "page break before" setting in your paragraph formatting. An actual, manual page break inserted with Ctrl+Enter (or Cmd+Enter on Mac).

Check this by turning on Show/Hide in Word. Page breaks appear as a dotted line with "Page Break" written in the center. If you see blank paragraph marks pushing your chapter to a new page instead, delete them and insert a proper page break.

The Heading 1 Requirement

After the page break, your chapter title needs to be formatted with Word's Heading 1 style. Not just bold text. Not a larger font size. The actual Heading 1 style from Word's Styles panel.

This applies to however you format your chapter titles. "Chapter One," "Chapter 1," "The Beginning," "1," or just a title like "Into the Storm" all need Heading 1 applied. The text itself can be anything. The style must be Heading 1.

Chapter Titles with Subtitles

If your chapters have both numbers and titles (like "Chapter 1: Into the Storm"), put them on the same line separated by a colon and a space. Vellum parses this format automatically. It will display the number as the chapter number and the text after the colon as the chapter title.

If you prefer them on separate lines, format the chapter number with Heading 1 and the subtitle with Heading 2. Vellum converts Heading 2 through Heading 5 into subheads at different levels, preserving your hierarchy.

Scene Breaks: The Single Blank Line Rule

Vellum interprets single blank lines as scene breaks. This is usually what you want. When you have a blank line between two paragraphs, Vellum adds a scene break at that location.

The problem comes when your manuscript doesn't use this convention. Some writers separate scenes with three asterisks (***). Some use three pound signs (###). Some use ornamental dingbats.

Good news: Vellum recognizes centered lines containing only *** or ### as ornamental breaks. These import correctly. If you use *** for scene breaks, center that line in Word and leave it as is. Vellum will convert it to your chosen ornamental break style.

If you use other symbols or images for scene breaks, replace them with centered *** before importing. You can change the ornamental break style within Vellum after import.

Formatting That Survives Import

Vellum preserves three types of inline formatting from Word: bold, italics, and centered text. That's the complete list. Everything else gets stripped.

This means your manuscript's font choices, font sizes, line spacing, margins, and paragraph indentation all disappear. Vellum ignores them and applies its own styles based on the template you choose. This is by design. Vellum handles all visual formatting, and it does it well.

Italics for emphasis, internal thoughts, and foreign words will transfer. Bold for signs, text messages, or emphasis will transfer. Centered chapter titles will transfer. Colors, highlights, strikethroughs, underlines, small caps, and custom fonts will not.

The First-Line Indent Trap

If you indent paragraphs with tabs or spaces in Word, remove them before importing. Vellum applies first-line indentation automatically based on your style choices. Manual indentation characters can cause your ebook to be rejected by retailers.

In Word, use Find and Replace to remove manual indentation. Search for a tab character at the start of paragraphs (^t at the start of a line, or ^p^t for paragraph mark followed by tab) and replace with nothing. Then search for multiple spaces at line starts.

The correct way to handle indentation in Word is through paragraph formatting (Format > Paragraph > Special > First Line), not manual tabs. Vellum will ignore paragraph formatting and apply its own indentation, which is what you want.

The Complete Pre-Import Checklist

Before you drag your Word file into Vellum, work through this checklist. Twenty minutes of prep prevents hours of fixes.

Turn on Show/Hide in Word. Click the pilcrow (¶) button to see hidden formatting marks. You need to see paragraph marks, page breaks, and tabs to clean them up.

Check every chapter start. Each chapter should begin with a page break (shown as a dotted line with "Page Break" text) followed immediately by the chapter title in Heading 1 style. No blank lines between the page break and the title.

Remove extra blank lines. Search your document for clusters of paragraph marks. No section should have more than one blank line. Replace visual spacing with single blank lines or remove them entirely.

Verify scene break formatting. Single blank lines become scene breaks. Centered *** or ### become ornamental breaks. Choose one method and apply it consistently throughout your manuscript.

Remove manual indentation. Use Find and Replace to delete tabs at the start of paragraphs. Delete multiple spaces at line starts. Let Vellum handle indentation.

Check your subheadings. Any text you want as a subhead within chapters should use Heading 2 through Heading 5 styles. Heading 2 becomes a Level One Subhead, Heading 3 becomes Level Two, and so on.

Simplify special formatting. If you have text that needs to look different (epigraphs, letters, text messages), mark it with something searchable like [BLOCK] and [/BLOCK]. You can style these sections properly inside Vellum after import.

Fixing Problems After Import

If you've already imported a messy manuscript, Vellum has tools to fix the damage. You don't need to start over.

Merging Split Chapters

When Vellum creates unwanted chapter breaks, you'll see "Untitled" elements in your navigator. To merge them back into the correct chapter: click the first element that should be merged, hold Shift, click the last element, then choose Chapter > Merge Selected Chapters from the menu.

This combines the selected elements into a single chapter. The merged content appears in order, with the first selected element's title becoming the chapter title.

Renaming Chapters

Click any chapter in the navigator, then click in the Chapter Title field at the top of the editor. Type your chapter title. Vellum saves changes automatically.

Converting Elements

If Vellum imported content as the wrong element type (a chapter that should be front matter, or front matter that should be a chapter), right-click the element in the navigator. Choose "Convert to" and select the correct element type.

Reimporting

If you've made changes to your Word file after the initial import (from editor feedback, for example), you can reimport without losing your Vellum work. Go to File > Reimport Word File. Vellum updates your text while preserving front matter, back matter, and styling you've already set up.

The Scrivener Path

If you write in Scrivener, you have a cleaner option. Literature & Latte built an "Export to Vellum" feature specifically for this workflow. In Scrivener, go to File > Export > Export to Vellum. Scrivener produces a .docx file formatted exactly how Vellum expects it.

This export handles chapter breaks, heading styles, and scene separators automatically. The chapter structure you set up in Scrivener's binder transfers directly to Vellum's navigator. Front and back matter export as proper elements. Scene breaks appear where you placed them.

If you use Scrivener, this export is the path of least resistance. The manual Word prep described above is primarily for writers who draft in Word, Google Docs (exported to .docx), or other word processors.

A Template for Future Books

Once you've cleaned up a manuscript successfully, save it as a template. Strip out the content but keep the formatting structure: the heading styles, the page break conventions, your standardized scene break method.

In Word, save this empty template as a .dotx file. Start every new project from this template. Your manuscripts will import cleanly into Vellum without any prep work because the structure is correct from the first word you write.

The template should include: Heading 1 style configured for chapter titles, a page break on the first page (so you start writing immediately after a proper chapter break), and your preferred scene break marker (single blank line or centered ***) demonstrated once. That's all you need.

What Vellum Does Well

Vellum's import process is strict because its output is reliable. The same structural parsing that causes problems with messy manuscripts also ensures your finished ebook and print files work correctly on every platform and every device.

Once your manuscript imports cleanly, Vellum handles everything else. Typography that works on Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and print. Chapter headings that display correctly regardless of reader settings. Scene breaks that scale with font size. Drop caps, ornamental breaks, and front matter styled to professional standards.

The twenty minutes you spend prepping your Word file pays for itself many times over. Clean imports mean you spend your time in Vellum choosing styles and previewing your book, not hunting down formatting errors and merging phantom chapters.

Format your Word file correctly once. Import cleanly. Get back to what matters: making your book look beautiful.