The Chicago Manual of Style on manuscript preparation:
“Publishers’ manuscript-prepartion guidelines. Many publishers have specific requirements or preferences regarding choice of software and typeface, as well as formats for submitting illustrations and tables along with your manuscript. These should be followed to the letter. Consistency and simplicity in all matters is essential: authors should know that their manuscripts will almost always be converted into another software environment for publication and that, therefore, the consistency and accuracy of the content (i.e., the words themselves) are more important than the style of presentation. A simple presentation is always preferable to an elaborately formatted manuscript. Authors who want a more explicit idea of what publishers look for in the format and structure of a manuscript would do well to consider the steps in a manuscript editor’s typical cleanup routine (see 2.77).”
The University of Chicago Press‘s 16th edition, The Chicago Manual of Style, is an excellent resource for writers of all kinds. You can find it here.
Editing Addict, LLC 