Manuscript Compiler (mdmf)

A Rust CLI tool to compile a novel or long-form manuscript from a YAML configuration and individual Markdown files into a single, properly formatted .docx file.

Features

• YAML Configuration: Define your manuscript's structure, metadata, author info, and file order in a single, easy-to-read YAML file.
• Standard Manuscript Formatting: Automatically generates a document with Times New Roman, 12pt font, double-spaced lines, etc. Follows William Shunn's guidelines.
• Automatic Title Page: Creates a standard title page with author contact info and an automatically calculated approximate word count (unique for short stories and longer works).
• Headers: Adds a right-aligned header (LastName | Short Title | PageNumber) to every page after the title page.
• Chapter and Part Generation: Correctly formats and adds Part and Chapter headings based on your manuscript's structure.
• Simple Markdown Support: Supports *italic*, _italic_, **bold**, and ***bold-italic*** within your text files. See Markdown Support for more information.
• Smart Typography: Converts plain quotes and dashes into professional curly quotes and em-dashes.
• Blind Formatting: Automatically removes author name and contact info from the manuscript for blind submissions.

Installation

This tool is written in Rust and requires Cargo to be installed.

To install the tool, simply run the following command in your terminal:

cargo install mdmf

This will download, compile, and place the mdmf binary in your Cargo bin path, making it available globally on your system.

Usage

Once installed, you can run the compiler from your terminal, providing the path to your YAML configuration file and the desired output directory.

mdmf <path/to/config.yaml> <path/to/output_directory>

Example:

mdmf testbuild_novel.yaml build/

Run this command from the same directory as the config file. The tool will read testbuild_novel.yaml, process all the specified text files listed within, and generate a single .docx file inside the build/ directory with a filename specified in the configuration.

YAML Configuration

The entire manuscript is defined by a YAML configuration file (e.g., testbuild_novel.yaml). This file has three main sections:

metadata

Contains information for the title page and document properties.

metadata:
  title: The Last Signal
  subtitle: A Chronicle of the Void # Optional
  byline: Jane Q. Novelist
  genre: Science Fiction
  short_title: The Last Signal      # For the page header
  last_name: Novelist               # For the page header
  file_name: test_manuscript.docx   # The name of the output file
  story_type: Novel                 # e.g., Novel or Short Story

author & agent

Contact information that appears on the title page. The agent section is optional and will be ignored if not present.

author:
  legal_name: Jane Quinn Novelist
  pen_name: Jane Q. Novelist
  street_address: 123 Literary Lane
  city_state_zip: New York, NY 10001
  phone: (212) 555-0123
  email: jane.q.novelist@email.com
  website: https://janeqnovelist.com

agent:
  name: John Agentman
  agency: The Best Words Literary Agency
  street_address: 456 Publishing Row
  city_state_zip: New York, NY 10002
  phone: (212) 555-0456
  email: john.agentman@bestwords.lit

structure

This is the blueprint of your book, defining the order of parts and chapters.

• Parts: Use type: part to create a part title page. A part contains a content list of chapters.
• Chapters: Use type: chapter to define a chapter.
  • title and number are used to generate the chapter heading (e.g., "Chapter 1: A Ship in the Dark"). Both are optional.
  • file: Use for a chapter contained in a single text file.
  • files: Use for a chapter composed of multiple scenes from different files. A scene break (#) will be automatically inserted between them.

structure:
  # A standalone chapter (e.g., a prologue)
  - type: chapter
    title: "Prologue"
    file: "prologue.md"

  # A part containing multiple chapters
  - type: part
    title: "Part One: Echoes"
    content:
      - type: chapter
        number: 1
        title: "A Ship in the Dark"
        file: "chapter1.md"
      - type: chapter
        number: 2
        title: "Whispers on the Comms"
        files:
          - "scene1.md"
          - "scene2.md"

Markdown Support

The compiler processes the individual Markdown files and supports the following sequence of formatting features:

• Italics: Wrap text in single asterisks or underscores (*italic* or _italic_).
• Bold: Wrap text in double asterisks (**bold**).
• Bold and Italics: Wrap text in triple asterisks (***bold and italics***).
• Blockquotes: Start a paragraph with a greater-than sign (> ) to indent it on both sides without a first-line indent.
• Smart Typography: Automatically converts plain typographic marks (like straight quotes and double and triple hyphens) into professional standard punctuation (curly quotes, en-dashes, and em-dashes, respectively).
• Comments / Notes: Standard Markdown headings (lines starting with # to ######) within your text files are ignored. Because the program relies exclusively on the YAML structure to generate Chapter and Part headings, you can safely use # headings directly within your text files as hidden comments or notes to yourself. They will not be included in the generated file.
• Paragraphs: Text is automatically indented and double-spaced. Blank lines are skipped and paragraph breaks follow the non-empty lines.