How do I move my novel out of Google Docs without losing anything?

By Brenn and Lindsay, the two writers who built Inkling

Moving a manuscript is mostly boring, and boring is what you want. Freeze a copy, write down your numbers, export the right way, then check what arrived. Here is the whole routine, plus what to ask of any app you move into.

If you are reading this, you have probably already decided. The Doc is too long, or too slow, or you have split it into twenty files and lost the shape of the book, or you just want your novel somewhere that feels like it was made for one. (If the problem is lag and you are not sure about moving yet, start with our post on Google Docs lagging on a long novel.)

Whatever is pulling you away, the move itself should be dull. Nothing about it is hard. It just has a few places where words go missing quietly if you skip a step, and every one of them is avoidable.

Step 1: Freeze a copy before you touch anything

Before you export, rename, or split anything, make sure there is a version of today's manuscript that nothing can change.

Name a version. Google's version history help page explains how: click Last edit at the top right, choose the current version, then More, then Name this version. Call it something like "Before the move, October 2026". Named versions are not merged away, and Google allows up to 40 per document.

Make a copy, with comments. In File, Make a copy, there is a box called Copy comments and suggestions, according to Google's help page on creating and downloading files. Tick it, and you can include resolved comments too. Put the copy in a folder called something like Archive and leave it alone. This is your untouched original, comments and all, inside Google.

Step 2: Write down your numbers

You cannot check that nothing went missing unless you know what you started with. Open Tools, then Word count, and write down the total. Google notes on its word count page that the count covers everything except headers, footers and footnotes, so if you use footnotes, note that separately.

Better still, jot down the word count of each chapter (select the chapter, then Tools, Word count gives you the selection), and the first and last sentence of each one. It takes ten minutes for a whole novel, and it turns "I think it all came across" into "I know it did."

Step 3: Export the right way

Google Docs can export a document in more formats than most people realize. Google's Drive export formats reference lists Word (.docx), OpenDocument (.odt), Rich Text (.rtf), PDF, plain text (.txt), web page (.html, also zipped), EPUB and Markdown (.md). From the menu, it is File, then Download, then the type.

• Word (.docx) is the one to move with. It keeps italics, headings and paragraph styles, and nearly every writing app and word processor opens it.
• Plain text (.txt) is your insurance. It loses all formatting, but it will open on anything, forever, and it is what some apps want to import.
• OpenDocument (.odt) is a good choice if you use LibreOffice rather than Word.
• PDF is for reading and printing, not for importing. Keep one as a snapshot of how the draft looked, if you like.

If your Doc has tabs, this is the step that bites. Google's document tabs help page says that when you download, the dialog defaults to Current tab. Change it to All tabs before you click Export. Otherwise your "manuscript" is whichever chapter you happened to have open.

If your novel is spread across many Docs, download each one, or use Google Takeout to export your Drive in one archive. Takeout is also a good habit in its own right; we come back to it in our post on what to do if Google Docs locks your novel.

Put the exports in a folder with the date in its name, on your own computer, not only in Drive.

Step 4: Decide what happens to comments and old versions

These are the two things that most often get left behind, because they are not really part of the text.

Comments. Whether comments come across in a download is something to check rather than assume. Open your .docx in Word or LibreOffice and look. Then ask a simpler question: which comments do you still need? Beta reader notes you have already acted on can stay in the archived Google copy from Step 1. Notes you still need belong in a plain document called something like Revision notes, because most writing apps import your words, not comment threads.

Suggestions. If you or an editor used suggesting mode, accept or reject the suggestions you care about before you export, so the text you move is the text you mean.

Earlier versions. Version history lives inside Google and does not travel in a download. If there is an earlier draft you might want (the chapter before you rewrote the ending, say), open version history, find it, and use More, then Make a copy, which Google's version history page describes. Download that copy too and keep it with your exports.

Step 5: Split into chapters, or decide not to

Most tools built for novels think in chapters, or chapters and scenes. Before you import, decide what your unit is and make your file match it.

• Make chapter titles consistent. If some chapters are "Chapter 7" in a heading style and others are bold text, fix that first. Some apps can split an imported file at headings, and inconsistent headings are why they split in the wrong places.
• Mark scene breaks the same way throughout. A centered *** or # is fine. A blank line is the scene break most likely to vanish in a move.
• Pull out what is not the novel. Character notes, research and outlines at the bottom of the Doc should go into their own file, so they do not import as Chapter 31.

If your new app does not split for you, the manual route is still easy: create the chapters in the new app, then paste each chapter in from your .docx. For a novel of thirty chapters, that is an evening, and you will read your own book along the way.

Step 6: Check what arrived

This is the step that makes the move lossless. Go through the list you made in Step 2.

• Chapter word counts. Close is fine; apps count slightly differently. A chapter that is thousands short is not fine.
• First and last sentence of every chapter. Missing endings are the classic paste error.
• Italics. Thoughts, ship names, book titles, emphasis. Plain-text routes drop them; check a few you know are there.
• Scene breaks, accents and punctuation. Curly quotes, dashes and accented names should look the way they did.
• Footnotes and endnotes, if you use them, since Google's own count leaves them out.

Then leave the Google original exactly where it is for a while. Do not delete it the day you move. A month of overlap costs nothing.

What should I check in any app before I move in?

Ask these before you commit, not after.

• What can it import? .docx, .txt, paste only, or a live connection to Google Docs? Does it keep italics?
• Does it link or copy? If an app connects to your Google Doc, does it copy the text in, or keep the Doc as the master and write back to it? Both are fine, but you need to know which, because one of them changes your Doc.
• What Google permission does it ask for? The narrow drive.file permission covers only the files you pick. Full Drive access covers everything. The consent screen tells you; our post on whether Google Docs trains on your writing explains the difference.
• Can I get everything out, in Word, any time? Including after I stop paying? If the answer is vague, keep your own dated exports more often.
• Where does my text live? On my machine, in a sync folder, or in the app's cloud? Our Scrivener post explains why that question matters.

How Inkling brings a Google Doc in, exactly

Since we just told you to ask those questions, here are our answers, with the parts that are not perfect.

Paste or upload. On your first page in Inkling there is a "Bring in what I've written" option: paste a chapter or the whole draft, or choose a .txt or .md file, and it becomes a story in your library. If the generator is on, it reads what you brought in and gives you a short "Previously" recap of your own words; you can switch the generator off in Setup. This route takes plain text, so italics do not come across. Inkling cannot read a .docx yet, so open it and copy, or export a .txt from Google instead. The same paste option lives in Setup later, under bringing your work in and out; if your Google account is connected, that route also makes a new Google Doc for the draft and keeps it in sync.

Connect a Doc with tabs. If you connect a Google Doc through Google's file picker and it has two or more tabs, Inkling asks what each tab is: a chapter, notes, or skip. Chapters can come in as one novel, in order. Notes tabs go into the first chapter's private notes. The text is copied into Inkling as plain text, and your Doc in Drive is not changed.

Connect a Doc without tabs. This one is a link, not a copy, and you should know how it behaves before you choose it. The Doc stays the master: Inkling reads it each time you open the story, and what you write in Inkling is saved back into that Doc as plain text, which replaces the Doc's formatting. There are guardrails. Inkling never writes to a Doc that has tabs, refuses a save that would wipe out most of the Doc unless you made that cut yourself in that session, keeps an earlier copy before it refreshes from the Doc, and pauses editing if it cannot read the Doc rather than risk saving over it. In that case you can also choose to stop syncing and keep writing in Inkling's own copy, which leaves the Doc as it is. Our advice: if the Doc has formatting or comments you care about, connect a copy, not your only original. That is what Step 1 is for.

Chapter by chapter. For a novel in one long Doc without tabs, the cleanest route is to create the novel in Inkling, add a chapter, and paste that chapter in, then repeat. Inkling does not split a single long file into chapters for you. Each chapter shows its own word count and the novel shows the total, which makes Step 6 quick. During the trial a novel counts once toward the trial's three stories, however many chapters it has.

Getting back out. Any story exports as Word, plain text, or a print PDF. A whole novel exports as one Word manuscript, or as a Google Doc with a tab for every chapter. Setup has a "Download a full backup" button that saves your whole library as one Word document. Exports carry only your words, never a generated recap. Each story also keeps up to six earlier copies in your account (one the first time you open it each day, and one before any save that would remove most of it) that you can put back from the story's footer.

The plan, plainly. There is a trial: 14 days to experience the full writing desk, build worlds, and be creative, with no card to start. Then $9 a month (or $72 a year). If the trial ends and you do not subscribe, nothing is deleted and the desk goes read-only; the way out at that point is exporting to Google Docs. So if you are trying Inkling, take a Word export of anything important before your trial ends, the same as you would with any app. Details are on the pricing page.

Wherever you land, the routine is the same: freeze, count, export, check. Then you can stop thinking about files and get back to the book.