Shunn Export
Eason Blackwood76 downloadsExport your Obsidian notes as properly formatted Shunn manuscript DOCX files, ready for short fiction submission.
- Overview
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An Obsidian plugin that exports your notes as properly formatted manuscript DOCX files, ready to attach to a short fiction submission.
The plugin implements William Shunn's Proper Manuscript Format — the industry standard for short fiction submissions to speculative fiction magazines and beyond.
What it does
Every mechanical formatting requirement is handled automatically:
- Font and size — Courier New, Courier, or Times New Roman at 12pt throughout
- Line spacing — double-spaced
- Paragraph indent — ½ inch first-line indent on every body paragraph
- Margins — 1 inch on all four sides
- First-page header — contact block (name, address, phone, email) upper-left; approximate word count upper-right, rounded to the nearest 100
- Running header —
Surname / Title / Pageflush right from page 2 onwards, suppressed on page 1 - Title page — title bold and centred roughly one-third down the page, byline below it
- YAML frontmatter — stripped before export
- Scene breaks —
#,* * *,---, or***on their own line all become a centred# - Scene labels — Markdown headings (
## Part Two) become bold centred text with an automatic#break before them - Italics —
*word*or_word_becomes italic (or underline, via toggle) - Em dashes —
--is converted to—
Installation
Via Obsidian Community Plugins
Search for Shunn Export in Settings → Community plugins → Browse.
Manual
Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release and copy them to your vault at .obsidian/plugins/shunn-export/.
Usage
Open the sidebar via the ribbon icon or Command Palette (Open Shunn Exporter). Fill in your details — these persist between sessions.
| Setting | Notes |
|---|---|
| Title | Used on the title page and in the running header |
| Author Name | Legal name or pen name |
| Font | Courier New (default), Courier, or Times New Roman |
| Include Address | Toggles the contact block on the first-page header |
| Abbreviate Header Title | Use a shorter title in the running header |
| Show Italics as Underline | For markets that prefer underlining |
| Anonymous Manuscript | Removes byline and surname from header (blind submissions) |
Hit Export to generate the DOCX. The file saves to your downloads folder named after the story title.
Writing conventions
The exporter handles all formatting, but a few simple conventions in your Obsidian document are required:
Paragraph breaks — separate paragraphs with a blank line between them (standard Obsidian behaviour).
Scene breaks — put #, * * *, or --- on its own line with a blank line before and after.
Italics — use *word* or _word_. Do not use **bold** — there is no bold in Shunn format, and double asterisks will appear literally in the output.
Em dashes — type -- and the exporter converts it to —.
Smart quotes — enable Obsidian's smart quotes (Settings → Editor → Smart quotes) so curly quotes are used in the source file.
One space between sentences — the exporter does not normalise spacing; two spaces will carry through.