On the first page of my book I have just two lines with a setting and date I want centered.
So far the ONLY thing that keeps is centered is checking “as is”. From what I’ve been reading I shouldn’t have to do that. Because when I use the as is function all the text on that page renders in a different font as well.
it’s probably something simple but I can’t figure it out. 
If you’re overriding your formatting during compile, you’ll need to use either the “compile as-is” checkbox or “Preserve Formatting” to maintain the editor formatting. “As-is” affects the entire document and has some extra qualities–it always compiles only the document text, regardless of whether documents of that type are set to also compile title or synopsis or whatever. “Preserve Formatting” works on just selections of text within a document, so sounds like what you want. There’s no way at present to limit what formatting is preserved, so you will want to ensure that you have the font, alignment, spacing, size, etc. set in the editor for the text you’re preserving, as none of it will be touched by the compile. But for just a couple lines of text, that shouldn’t be difficult.
Select the text in the editor, then choose Format > Formatting > Preserve Formatting. You’ll see a blue box around the preserved text indicating its formatting will stick through compile. You can still select it and alter it within the editor.
Thank you! OMG that is so much easier!
thank you, thank you!