Atticus will not import a Google Doc natively, so you'll need to follow the formatting steps below similar to importing a Word file and export your document as a .docx to upload into Atticus.
If your book is simple without heavy formatting, you likely only have to follow the four simple steps below. If your book has more complicated formatting (like links or footnotes), please review our full guide here.
Step 1: Set your chapter titles properly. To make sure Atticus splits your chapters correctly, you must choose one of the following:
Add a page break between chapters in your Google Doc. To do this, click Insert > Break > Page break. You'll need to input Chapter Title into Atticus later.
Change all of your chapter titles to Heading 1. Select the title, then click Format > Paragraph styles > Heading 1. Your Heading 1 will automatically be your Chapter Titles.
Step 2: Delete front matter. If you have a Table of Contents, Title Page, or Copyright Page, delete them from your manuscript. Atticus builds these for you automatically.
Step 3: Export as a .docx. Atticus can only import .docx files, so you’ll need to download your Google Doc in that format. Click File > Download > Microsoft Word (.docx).
Step 4: Upload the .docx to Atticus.
Doing these things typically ensures your manuscript uploads correctly. If you need more help, watch the video below, which walks you through uploading your .docx into Atticus.
Troubleshooting
Your file won’t import?
Hyperlinks: Remove any hyperlinks from your document, export again, and re-import.
Images: Remove images, export again, and add them back in Atticus after importing.
File type: Atticus only imports .docx files. Make sure you used File > Download > Microsoft Word (.docx), not PDF or another format.
Chapters didn’t split correctly?
Make sure there’s a page break between each chapter.
Double-check that each chapter title is set to Heading 1. Check View > Show outline to see which titles are being recognized.