Manuscript Proofread & Word Cleanup

I have a non-fiction manuscript of roughly 200–220 pages sitting in Microsoft Word that needs a final pass before it heads to layout. Every chapter needs the same level of attention, so please plan on working straight through from introduction to conclusion without prioritising any single section.

Your brief is threefold:

• Thorough proofreading for grammar, punctuation, spelling and consistency, following a Chicago-leaning style. Please keep the text free of in-text numbered footnotes; the current end-notes must stay exactly where they are.
• Structural clean-up inside Word: remove all hard line breaks, consolidate multiple paragraph returns, rebuild any manual columns or tabs into proper Word tables, and make sure automatic page breaks fall in sensible places.
• Final formatting polish so the file is press-ready—clean styles, stable headers and footers, and no lurking section breaks or hidden markup.

I will supply the existing .docx along with a brief style sheet that notes a few author-preferred spellings and abbreviations. Return a single, tracked-changes file plus a clean copy with all changes accepted.

Accuracy, attention to detail, and deep familiarity with Microsoft Word’s table tools and style management are essential. If this sounds like your workflow, let me know your timeframe and any clarifying questions so we can get started.