Here are some simple and practical tips for preparing a word document for successful formatting in a layout package (in this case, InDesign)
Use Word's built-in Styles, not manual formatting
This is the single biggest time-saver for you and the easiest habit for them to learn.
Apply Heading 1 for chapter titles, Heading 2 for subheadings, Normal/Body Text for paragraphs — using the Styles panel, not just changing font size/bold manually
Avoid pressing Enter multiple times to create space — that space won't map cleanly to InDesign; space should come from paragraph spacing settings, not blank lines
Avoid pressing Tab or the spacebar to indent the first line of paragraphs — set a first-line indent in the paragraph style instead, since InDesign will import tab characters as literal characters that need cleaning up
Keep italics/bold as actual character formatting (Ctrl/Cmd+I or B), not a different font
Keep the structure clean and consistent
One consistent style for chapter breaks (e.g. always start a new chapter with a page break, not a bunch of manual returns)
Turn off Word's automatic numbered/bulleted lists for anything except true lists — autonumbering can behave unpredictably on import
Remove any manual page breaks except where they're structurally meaningful (end of chapter, part divisions)
Strip out multiple consecutive spaces (a Find & Replace for two spaces → one space catches most of this)
Indicating images, illustrations, and diagrams
Don't embed the final high-resolution image in the Word doc — file size bloats and quality often degrades on paste
Insert a low-res placeholder or simply a clearly labelled placeholder line, e.g. [IMAGE: Figure 3 – map of settlement, see file "fig03_map.jpg"] on its own paragraph
Supply the actual image files separately as a numbered folder (fig01, fig02, etc.) matching the placeholder labels exactly
If captions are needed, have them type the caption text directly under the placeholder so you're not guessing at wording later
For diagrams/tables built in Word, note whether they want it recreated in InDesign or supplied as a separate image — Word tables often need to be rebuilt anyway rather than imported directly
Other useful to-do items
One file, not a fragmented one-file-per-chapter approach — easier to manage styles consistently across a single document
Turn on Track Changes off / all changes accepted before sending — a manuscript full of tracked edits will import as a mess
Remove headers/footers/page numbers from the Word file — these get rebuilt in InDesign to match the final trim size and design anyway, so leaving them in just adds clutter to strip out
Confirm front matter is included but flagged: title page, copyright page text, dedication, table of contents (you'll rebuild the ToC in InDesign, so they don't need to format it — just needs the correct chapter titles listed)
Ask them to do a final spelling/grammar pass before sending, since fixing typos after layout is far more time-consuming (text reflows, page counts shift)
Save as .docx (not .doc or Google Docs export) to avoid style-mapping issues
Why?
Word styles are like labelled folders — InDesign reads the labels, not the way it looks on your screen. If you manually make something look like a heading without labelling it as one, InDesign won't recognise it as a heading. And if there are multiple levels of headings, determining the heading’s place in the hierarchy can be diffiicult.