I have a completed book manuscript with chapters and scenes. When I try to compile only halfway down the list gets compiled. I can click on the scenes and read them, but they do not show up in the compiled version. This is a serious issue because I’m on a deadline. Even a mechanical fix with exporting each file and copying might have to be a last resort. Any help greatly appreciated.
My bet is that you’ve created the non-compiling scenes outside the Draft/Manuscript folder.
Mark
Another hypothesis some components unselected to be compiled.
All of the scenes appear in the manuscript folder just as they did in the previous draft that compile just find. When I look at the window showing the checked chapters and scenes, it simply stops short. So I know that somehow something is only allowing scenes and chapters until what I can only describe as an arbitrary cut off. The indentations aren’t different and the scenes can be opened on the manuscript. Not sure how I could be creating non compiling scenes if the scenes are visible on the page and can be opened.
I do notice that on this draft my manuscript file in under the binder heading when I compile. Could that be the problem? If so, I do I get it out so that it shows as just the manuscript (draft) folder not the folder within the binder?
can you take a screen shot. but should be able to drag manuscript folder to top of the binder and reassemble the acts, chapters and scenes back within the manuscript so all are contained within. Should look like this. Did compact some acts and chapters to give overall view.
Look at the first document on the list that fails to compile. There may be something in the document that Compile chokes on.
Use Scrivener’s Zap Gremlins command to remove any invisible control characters embedded in that text, and see if that helps.
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In the Binder, click the triangle to the left of the Draft folder to collapse it. Are the missing documents still visible? If so, that’s the issue: the Compile command only sees what’s inside the Draft folder.
To fix it, either drag and drop or use the Documents → Move To command.
This was/is promising except that I cannot get the scenes or chapter files to move into the manuscript file. Manuscript is grayed out on the documents move to menu and the scenes and chapter files just bounce back when I try to drag and drop. Some were constructed in Pages and imported. But I don’t think all. Could that be the problem. If so can I export and change the format to rtf or something else more Scrivener friendly? I am willing to try just about anything no matter how tedious.
UPDATE: I did a little experiment. It is indeed the imported Pages scenes that cannot be moved. What’s the best way to manage this? Should I export and reformat and then import again? If so what’s the best format to use. I’m on a mac laptop. Thanks for your knowledge, help and patience.
This means you copied the Pages files themselves into Scrivener’s Binder — so Scrivener houses them, but they are still Pages files, not Scrivener docs. That is why you can’t move them into the Manuscript folder. Only compilable text docs can go in there.
You should open those Pages files in Pages, export as rtf (or docx) and drop the resulting file into Scrivener’s Binder. Scrivener will then convert the incoming file into a Scrivener text document.
Then you will be able to move all your docs into the Manuscript folder.
(And when all is well, you will presumably want to delete the Pages files you put in the Binder — to avoid future confusion.)
Bawd on your previous information, that’s exactly what I did. THANK YOU. I now have a fully compiled manuscript of 116,950 words. Pages have been tucked away in the trash and I can now work on revising my text. It was tedious work and it took a while but it worked. I will study a bit more before starting my next revisions.
You were a life saver.
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Fantastic! Glad you got it sorted.
–gr
P.S. Pages files can’t be converted straight out because the native Pages file format is proprietary and Apple has never released an API for it. Fortunately, basically all writing apps will export to rtf and/or docx.