Changing Fonts, Saving Italics

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

Hi,

I realize this is a problem that that I am having with the Mac text engine, but I am struggling to figure out how to change fonts and font sizes of my text without losing italics. Is there an easy way to do this? Can I create a style that does not strip italics from my text when I use it? What about using the font Window? I’m sure this is obvious, but it is giving me fits.

Thanks,

Matt

2

Normally, this should not be a problem. You select the text you want to change, type CMD-T to call the font window, and voilà - your’s to chose.

You should, however, chose a font that has italics, otherwise the italic will become invisible. (Not the text itself, but it will appear in normal. When you switch back or to another font that provides italic, the italic parts will come back.)

3

Are you sure about that last bit? Whenever I’ve tested this, switching to a font that does not support bold and italics will permanently destroy all formatting in the text.

4

Thanks for the help. The problem turned out to be that I was working off the list of “recently used” fonts, which apparently wipes away attributes such as italics. What about setting up styles that don’t wipe out italics, is that possible? I’m trying to find a way to quickly bring a little visual consistency to my text without losing important information. Thanks again,

matt

5

Yes, favourite font styles are just that, the whole thing and not just the selection of a family. The easiest way to maintain a consistent look in Scrivener is to use the Documents/Convert/Format to default style. This will retain formatting like italics and bold, but return everything to a consistent ruler, font family, and size style.

6

Thanks,

The problem with convert to default style for me is block quotes. I guess I need to go through my text and add some kind of marker for block quotes so I can find them after converting the text. Thanks again for your help.

Matt

7

This will be improved in the next version, convert will allow you to be much more selective; but for now you are right: if there is a dependence on custom ruler styles it might not be the best tool. Sorry there isn’t a better answer at the moment than selecting everything and choosing the font family by hand.

8

You are right. I confused this with another text processor that does not depend on the OS X text edit object.