Exporting your book
15 May 2026
Waxcap™'s editor is laid out for writing, so you don't have to think about submission format until you're ready to send the book out. When you are, the export takes care of the formatting for you.
Choose File ▸ Export… (⌥⌘E) and the Export Wizard asks what you're doing, then asks only the questions that matter for that job.
What each export gives you
Send to my agent, editor, or publisher gives you the manuscript in standard submission format, as a Word document (.docx) or a PDF. Most agents ask for Word. Along the way you choose the font, whether to add a title page and a table of contents, and whether to send the whole book or part of it.
Share with readers for feedback gives you a Reading Copy, a PDF laid out for comfortable reading by beta readers, a writing group or a friend. It can carry a DRAFT watermark across every page.
Make an ePub gives you a file for Apple Books, Kindle and other e-reader apps.
Back up the full project writes your manuscript into one plain-text file you can open in any text editor, with your Reference Material alongside it unless you leave it out. Cut Material can go in too.
Save a complete project archive saves the whole project, version history included, as a single .waxcap file. File ▸ Import Project… opens it as a separate copy of the project, on this Mac or another one.
If none of those fits, Custom… at the foot of the wizard's first screen opens the full export sheet with every option available at once.
Why a submission manuscript looks so different
Open a submission export next to the editor and the same chapter looks like it came from two different apps. The font changes to Times New Roman or Courier, the spacing doubles, paragraphs gain first-line indents instead of blank lines between them, and scene breaks become a single centred # on its own line.
That's the layout agents and publishers expect to receive. It's easy for them to read and mark up, but it isn't much fun to write in for hundreds of pages, which is why Waxcap's editor looks the way it does and leaves the changes to the export.
Checking before you send
The Manuscript Compatibility check at the top of the Content Analysis panel tells you, for the document you're working on, what will happen to it in a submission export. Analysis ▸ Check Manuscript Compatibility… runs the same check across the whole project, whether or not Content Analysis is on.
Green, marked Manuscript Compatible, means nothing you meant to keep will be lost. If the document has annotations or highlights, the check still says so, because they're your own working marks and a submission export always takes them off. Amber means something in the document, such as bold text, has no equivalent in submission format, and the check lists what would change so you can decide whether it matters.