Hello! I have two things I have been unable to get to work in Scrivener 3, and they’re driving me mad. I’m sure they’re easy, but I just can’t do it, so I’m hoping somebody can point me in the right direction.
First…I have my MS organized by chapters with scenes below them. I used folders for each chapter, and renamed them “Chapter”, except for the final one, which I named “Epilogue”. When I compile, Scrivener automatically calls the chapters “Chapter 1”, “Chapter 2”, etc…which is fine. They don’t have names. However, instead of calling it “Epilogue”, it says “Chapter 35”. I want it to say “Epilogue”, and thought that simply renaming that folder would do the trick. Obviously, I was mistaken. How can I force the compiler to use the “Epilogue” name for that one chapter, while letting the others be auto-numbered?
Second…I am trying to figure out how to put separators in between scenes. I’d like something like the four asterisks that several books use.
So, something like this:
Chapter 1:
Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3
I’ve tried playing with the custom separators in the compile options, but I must be doing it wrong! Can somebody please correct me so I can stop growling at this otherwise-amazing program? Thanks in advance!
You will want to look into Section Layouts and Section Types for this, which are a new concept in Scrivener 3. In fact, in Scrivener 2 it would have been almost impossible to have the last chapter named “Epilogue” and other chapters “Chapter 1” etc without placing the epilogue at a different structural level in the binder (because Scrivener 2 could only format based on binder structure). In Scrivener 3, however, it’s fairly straightforward to do this sort of thing without needing to restructure.
Essentially, this is how you would do it:
Your chapter folders will each be assigned a Section Type of e.g. “Chapter Group”.
Your epilogue folder would be assigned a different Section Type, e.g. “Epilogue”. (You can set up Section Types in Project Settings).
In Compile, you use “Assign Section Layouts…” to assign section layouts to your section types. You would assign a section layout that uses “Chapter [n]” for your “Chapter Group” section types, and a layout that looks the same but prints out the actual title for the epilogue.
I don’t know what project template you are starting from or which Compile format (or whether you are using your own), but here is an example of how easy the above would be if you had started from the “Novel” project template, for instance:
In Project Settings, create an “Epilogue” Section Type.
In the Inspector, apply the “Epilogue” section type to your epilogue folder.
Go to Compile and pick a format from the left, e.g. “Manuscript (Times)”.
Click on “Assign Section Layouts…”.
Everything else is already set up, so all you need to do is select your new “Epilogue” section type on the left and choose how it looks on the right - in this case choosing “Heading”.
This tells Compile to format your epilogue folder slightly differently, using the actual title folder as the title in the final document rather than “Chapter [n]” etc.
For your second issue, you will have to get your hands dirty editing the Section Layouts in a Compile Format. For this you will want to Ctrl-click on the format in the Compile list on the left and select “Duplicate & Edit Format…”, then edit the “Separators”. Different section layouts can have different separators - depending on the format you have duplicated or are editing, you will most likely want to edit the “Section Text” separators.
All of the above will make much more sense if you familiarise yourself with Section Types and Section Layouts, though. There is a section dedicated to this in the Scrivener 3 tutorial if you haven’t yet checked out that (there’s a collection in there for users who are familiar with Scrivener 2). We also have a transition guide which goes into lots of detail here:
Haven’t had the chance to try this yet, but I definitely will be taking a look tonight. I started from the Novel format, and am compiling into Word, epub3, and .mobi.
This tells Compile to format your epilogue folder slightly differently, using the actual title folder as the title in the final document rather than “Chapter [n]” etc.
this part above that you said to do - I don’t know how. i’ve been searching online and in the forums for help.
can you tell me how to do this?? i want my chapters to compile with the names i have for the folders not the pre-determined chapter 1, 2, 3, etcc. that scrivners does