Thats odd because from a couple of friends in the publishing industry They prefer all the manuscripts to be plain text. The first step after they receive the ma

Thats odd because from a couple of friends in the publishing industry They prefer all the manuscripts to be plain text. The first step after they receive the manuscript is to remove all formatting so they can get it into their typesetting program with the least effort. Why an author would prefer word or even open office over notepad is beyond me. Word count maybe? It gives almost no benefit and requires extra work when it's time to hand off the manuscript to the publisher.