I want to change the margins for a single, highlighted paragraph so it’s slightly narrower than the rest. How do I do this in Scrivener?
TIA
I am assuming you are referring to the Editor. Menu: Format → Paragraph → Tabs and Indents. If forgottten Menu: Help → Indents.
Make sure the Ruler is showing, View > Text Editing → Show Ruler (Cmd-R), then drag the margin marks to where you want them.
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Thanks for the replies. Bit confused with Paragraph Indents. Currently show 0.39in left and right but if I increase to just 0.40, A get just one character per line.
Dragging on the ruler just moves the 2nd lines (it’s a conversation)
Show your screen shot of your settings (either of the above screen shots works).
The indents all count from the left edge. So you’ve put the right indent right next to the left indent.
Those are the original settings, they’re fine. It’s only when I try to change them that problems occur.
Please post a screenshot of the non-working settings, then. A shot of working settings doesn’t tell us anything.
In any case, what I said about counting from the left edge is still true. If left and right are the same, Scrivener lets the right “float” because you didn’t specify a right indent. If you do specify a right indent, then the “text box” is going to be defined by (right - left). So a left indent of 0.39 and a right indent of 0.40 will give you a text box of 0.40 - 0.39 = 0.01.
It might help if you actually tried my suggestion. Please set the right indent to, say, 4.4. What happens?
That’s possibly because I didn’t understand.
Doing that (4.4) worked on the right hand side but not sure how to do the same on the left.
The margins define the text box relative to the physical edge of the paper. They are set via the File → Page Setup command, which also defines the paper size.
The Scrivener Editor doesn’t know what a “page” is, really. It will allow you to define a page as wide as your screen, if you want. Which is why the Tabs and Indents settings all count from the left edge of the window.
Now, typically the left edge of a paragraph corresponds to the left margin of the page. This is zero on the Ruler. If you want the left edge to be further in, adjust the left indent.
When trying to determine whether a setting had the desired effect, it’s very helpful to enable the Ruler and, if applicable, to see the adjusted formatting next to a “standard” paragraph. If the only thing on the screen is the text you’re trying to adjust, it’s hard for you (and even harder for anyone helping you) to see what’s actually going on.
It’s also very useful to enable the View → Text Editing → Show Invisibles option, which will reveal tabs, paragraph breaks, tables, and other formatting that might be affecting what you actually see.
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May I suggest using the preset “Block quote” style? This will indent both margins, and play nicely when it comes to compiling. 
I suspect there’s an extra return? You can check by 'show invisibles. I’m not at my computer, but i think its under edit > text > show invisibles.
If my memory is correct, I believe the block quote automatically adds a space before and after, so you don’t need to add blank lines manually.
[Edit - I just noticed something else - I don’t know if all lines in your sample are supposed to be at the same indent level, or if it is the forum’s formatting interfering. If every other line is your block quote, then remove the manually entered blank lines.
However, if you do have multiple block quotes immediately following one another, I believe there is an alternate solution]
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In addition to @FamilyPuzzleSolver’s excellent suggestion, it also could be the the “paragraph spacing” before or after is too much for your preference. With cursor in one or more of the lines see Menu → Format → Paragraph → Line and Paragraph Spacing. Set as you like then you can use the “Redefine Style from Selection” on Menu → Format → Style" menu.
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Thanks both. I did what @rms suggested and that worked but it’s only indented from the left. The right hand side lines up with the other paragraphs
You can change that, e.g.
(only makes sense if you work with a fixed width editor, in this case 6 inches wide)
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