I set my “main text attributes” by selecting Tools > Options > Editor, and specifying that I want my main text to be Courier Prime, 10pt, with single-line spacing. I understand that it applies to new documents, fine. It works that way.
It sounds like you might not have updated your preset to match the new formatting preferences yet. Just put your cursor anywhere in a paragraph that is correct, and use the Format/Formatting/Redefine Preset from Selection/ sub-menu to select “Body” and save the new settings into it. By default it only sets paragraph settings, which is why it wasn’t messing with your Courier Prime default.
A follow up question, though: When I tried it my way, setting my formatting choices by going to Tools > Options > Editor, what was it that I was setting if not the editor’s main text format?
You were doing the right thing, if you had just set the “Body” preset to look right and did not change your default formatting, you’d then have to apply “Body” each and every time you started a new document. These two things are not connected in any way, perhaps that is where the confusion sits. Presets are just a scattering of examples we provided to show you how you can use them. They are one-shot formatting macros, not something like a stylesheet where changing the style changes the presets.
Thanks, Amber. Sounds like I need to read up on it a bit to get my head around it. I just want to set my new default documents to always be Courier Prime, 10pt, 1x space. And I want to be able to apply that same formatting to any text I happen to drag into a doc (by applying a style preset, I presume).
Sounds like what you really want is the Documents > Convert > Formatting to Default Text Style command. That will convert all the text in the selected document(s) to match the formatting you set for the editor in Options while preserving character formatting such as bold and italic. You’ll get an option as well when you choose the command to preserve tabs and indents and some other formatting, which can be helpful in certain cases. In the Keyboard options you can assign a shortcut for the command if you use it often. It’s one of the first things I do when setting up Scrivener on a new machine.
