However, the import of non FD/MMS scripts isn’t perfect. The resulting file mashes together:
successive action paragraphs
dialogue with an immediately subsequent action paragraph.
Has anyone here found a way to get better results? A few posters on the CeltX board have mentioned the problem, but no one has responded with a solution. I’ll do it by hand, if necessary, but I’d rather it weren’t necessary.
Hmm, I wonder if I could offer an export option for this, now that you mention the wiki there… Could you send me a text file that DOES successfully import into CeltX, with all the main elements? i.e. Scene heading, action (with more action after it showing how it doesn’t mash together), etc? I have a feeling that all I need to do is insert two lines into the plain text where the paragraph attributes of the rich text specify a double break…
I attached Amanda.zip, which contains four small files:
Amanda Intro.rtf shows how I’d like the script to look. It’s an RTF export from Scrivener.
Amanda Intro.txt shows the text file as it exported from Scrivener.
Amanda Cleaned.txt is the text file above after it was cleaned up per the instructions on CeltX wiki.
Amanda Celtx.html shows the script as it was imported into CeltX. Note the two action paragraphs at the start of the scene that are mashed together, and also that several subsequent action paragraphs are now part of the dialog.
Well, firstly, you don’t need to go through that cleaning step. The weird characters that show up are just because Scrivener uses smart quotes and smart ellipses. When you export, you need to check the options to replace these with their plain text equivalents, in the Text Options pane of the Compile Draft box.
Other than that, it seems that Scrivener just needs to offer an option to add newlines where the paragraph spacing is set to double…
Hmm. I just tried that. In Compile Draft|Text Options|Manuscript Style, I checked the boxes for ‘Convert Ellipses to Triple Periods’, and ‘Straighten Typographer’s Quotes’. However, I got the same weird characters when I exported the txt file. I even tried shutting down and re-opening to see if that would activate the new choices. But no.
Very strange… There’s no reason that should happen. What program are you opening it in? Try exporting as RTF and double checking that the quotes have indeed been straightened etc.
Best,
Keith
Oh, yes, I forgot to say that you need to make sure that “Override formatting” IS checked in the “Formatting” pane. If it’s not checked, then the straighten quotes and replace ellipses setting is ignored. Obviously this isn’t really intended behaviour, and I have it on my list to fix for 1.2.