I’ve written a draft manuscript in Scrivener with no indents and an extra line separating all paragraphs. Now I realize the need to remove all those extra lines and indent the first line of each paragraph instead. The indenting is easy, but do I have to go through and individually delete each extra line between paragraphs?
Hi SusanD, and welcome to the forum.
Before you go through the process of making changes throughout the project, I’d recommend starting with the compile tools to see if that will clean up the output file for you.
To put this another way, Scrivener isn’t necessarily a WYSIWYG word-processing program. It’s entirely possible to have the manuscript formatted one way in the main editor for writing comfort and then use the compile process to format the output file to meet submissions standards.
(And, thank goodness that’s the case for writers like me who use different fonts and font colors during each round of revisions.)
You might also want to check out our 4-part series titled “Getting Your Work Out” on the Mac tutorial videos page.
Seeing the compile process demonstrated and getting tips on how the compile tools can change the formatting could be helpful.
Scrivener’s Interactive Tutorial also has some documents about the compile process. And, Chapters 23 and 24 in the Scrivener manual go into detail on the settings and customization process. You can access a PDF copy of the manual from the Help menu. That is also where you can access the Tutorial.
I personally like using the Tutorial as a testing space for a number of Scrivener features, including testing out the compile tools and options. That way, I can experiment with different compile formats and output files without using my own work. If I get settings wrong in the Tutorial, I can delete the flawed one and get a new copy from the Help menu.
1 Like
In the Scrivener Editor, look for Edit → Text Tidying → Remove Extra Lines Between Paragraphs to remove them permanently. The command will work on whatever’s in the Editor, including a Scrivenings session with more than one document.
2 Likes
Perfect. That does it! Thanks so much.
For future reference:
If you like seeing the paragraphs separated out and without indent, I recommend you set your default paragraph in Scriv’s settings to No First-line Indent, and to 12pts of Space After (assuming you type with a 12pt font). The latter will give you the visual effect of space between paragraphs without the double carriage return.
Then you can have your Compile automatically transform your paragraphs to one’s with first-line indent and no space-after — just like in a typical book.
This is exactly how I work. Text in the Editor pane looks how I want it to look when I am working. And compile takes care of giving the text a finished look on output.
Recommended!
(I also use a different font in the editor than I ever use when Compiling — for the same reason.)
2 Likes