These instructions assume that you have basic gunsmithing skills and tools to allow you to measure accurately, file a dovetail angle accurately, use a hammer and punch without damaging the parts. What comes next is for those who have the skills and tools and made the commitment to do this job in the most skillful manner possible.
Be aware that you may need to do fitting (measuring, inspection against a light and filing) to be able to do a satisfactory installation of your front sight. There's more to it than just taking a sight out of the bag and shoving it into the dovetail with a sight pusher.
Measure the depth of the dovetail from top of slide to the floor of the dovetail, using care to be at the exact top, so you get the maximum dimension. Then measure the sight from the floor of the dovetail to the bottom of the sight blade. You can get both dimensions with a caliper, but you can get a much more accurate measurement with a depth micrometer.
If your sight has the same dimension as your slide, or if the sight is greater than the slide, then you potentially may have to do no fitting in the depth plane of fit. If the slide dimension is greater than the sight, you will have to do fitting to the depth plane of fit.
Next try to insert the sight into your dovetail, trying each side to see if either side is easier. The sight dovetail has no taper to the dovetail cut, so will go in either way. You may find your sight dovetail is slightly tapered, letting the sight go in deeper or easier, so you can consider that to be the direction to work in. See the illustration above to see where you can and cannot tap against a sight.
Before you pick up your hammer and punch, test your starting fit. Your starting fit should be that the sight will enter the dovetail using thumb pressure and go in 1/4 - 1/3 of the way before it stops. If you do not have that starting fit, you'll need to use a dovetail file of the correct angle (60° for Springfield, 65° for Novak) to either make the slide dovetail wider or to make the sight dovetail narrower. I only file from one surface going a few strokes, then testing the fit again.
Once you have the proper starting fit, you can use a vise -w- padded jaws, a hammer and a punch of your choosing to tap the sight towards center. It should move easy enough that you do not deform the dovetail edge. If it starts to get tight or deform STOP! Tapping from the other side, remove the sight and work a little more on your dovetail fit.
If the sight moves in without deforming or getting tight, stop just before the sight blade gets close to the top of the slide. Hold the slide up to a strong light and look to see if your blade is touching, or shows a tiny sliver of light. If it's touching (or if you had a depth plane of fit such that the slide dovetail was deeper than the corresponding measurement on the sight) you'll need to get some clearance between the two. You can do this by removing the sight and either filing from the bottom of the blade on each side of the dovetail, or by cutting a small flat on the top of the slide, only as long as the blade is long from the front of the slide. Your choice, but the cleaner you can work the better the end result.
Once you have a fit allowing the sight to be centered in the slide and not touching the top of the slide with the bottom of the blade, that's a good point to test fire if you plan to. But before you're done, remove the sight, degrease the sight dovetail and the slide cut, touch up anything you need to and use some Loctite 263 (red hi-temp) in the slide cut. Smear it around to coat the bottom and angles and also use a toothpick to lay down a line of Loctite where the blade will come to a stop at. Carefully reinstall the sight, center it ( I'd measure to be sure) wipe off any excess Loctite and then let the Loctite cure 24 hours.
