Q: [What is the meaning of the status] 'Manuscript assigned to production department for layout designing'?

Firstly, please note that we have made some edits to your question for enhanced clarity.

So, the mentioned status typically means that your manuscript has been accepted and is now being typeset for publication. However, it will not go directly into publication, but come to you for proofing, where you will get a chance to go through your accepted manuscript one last time before it gets published. [We had talked about proofing checks in response to your previous query. So, you may refer to that response for more information.]

However, it’s odd that the journal has directly sent your manuscript for typesetting without first informing you of its acceptance, but we have seen this happen a few times recently. (In which case, congrats on the acceptance!) To be doubly sure though, you should write to the journal confirming whether this is indeed the case. While you wait for their response and for the typeset article to come to you, again, you may go through the proofing to-dos to ensure a perfect article is going back to the journal to be published.

Additionally, you may wish to utilize this time to think about how you can promote your (hopefully) accepted / published article. For that, you may find the below resources helpful. A couple of them are on Editage Insights itself, but one (the last) is a course on R Upskill, a family brand providing learning programs for a variety of researcher needs, from writing to publication to research promotion. Do check it out!

• How can I promote my published paper?
• Promoting your article in the social media age
• How To Promote Your Research For Greater Impact? [Course]

Hope all that helps. Congrats again, and all the best for taking your paper toward publication – and beyond!