Professional publishing and export — what should “finished manuscript” mean in WorldScript?

[qnbs]

Why this exists

Issue #521 is the concrete implementation and acceptance context for DOCX export. This Discussion explores what authors mean by a finished manuscript and how publishing-oriented workflows should remain bounded, deterministic, and accessible.

Product and format scope

Markdown, plain text, and DOCX are the immediate format context. PDF and EPUB are open design questions, not commitments. Please distinguish manuscript-only output from whole-project output and discuss when a project package should include characters, worlds, appendices, or other supporting material.

Possible publishing controls include compile profiles or presets, title pages, dedications, imprint and other front/back matter, screenplay output where relevant, styles and headings, page breaks, images, and semantic structure. Export, publish, and archive package are different concepts:

• Export produces a readable interchange or delivery document.
• Publish may apply a target-specific profile and presentation rules.
• Archive package preserves a reproducible project and its supporting assets.

Semantic fidelity and visual fidelity can conflict. Accessible headings, reading order, document language, alt text, page structure, and keyboard/screen-reader usability should be treated as first-class output concerns. Deterministic and reproducible export matters for review, debugging, and trust.

Role perspectives

Role-perspective note: The viewpoints below are maintainer-curated, AI-assisted design lenses. They are not separate community members, votes, user testimony, or evidence of consensus.

• ✍️ Novelist/submission workflow: produce a reliable manuscript in the formats and conventions a submission process actually accepts.
• 🎬 Screenwriter: preserve scene structure and screenplay-specific output without forcing every project into screenplay rules.
• 🖨️ Editor/publisher: support front matter, styles, profiles, revisions, and repeatable production steps.
• ♿ Accessible-document user: require semantic structure, reading order, usable navigation, and accessible exported documents.
• 🧭 Maintainer/format-scope: keep the first implementation coherent, testable, and honest about unsupported formats.

Questions

• What does “finished manuscript” mean for your workflow?
• Which compile profiles or presets would remove the most repeated work?
• Which front/back matter and appendices are essential?
• When is semantic fidelity more important than visual fidelity, and when is the reverse true?
• Which screenplay export needs belong in the shared MVP versus a specialist profile?
• Which PDF or EPUB use cases justify future scope without turning open questions into commitments?
• What makes an export deterministic enough to trust and reproduce?

Relationship to implementation

This Discussion is product and workflow design. #521 remains the current DOCX implementation and acceptance owner. Discussion responses do not change #521's priority, roadmap admission, acceptance criteria, or execution sequencing.