Hi, When exporting chapters to Word, page break changes systematically into section break. I Have tried all options within Compile and I can’t have page break maintained as preset in Word, I must change each section break to page break again. Am I missing something?
Thanks for your help
What is your ultimate goal in Word? If you’re changing headers – for instance to have a blank header at the beginning of a chapter – Word will need a section break to do that.
I have Parts with Chapters for my fiction manuscripts. Parts are separated by sections, within them Chapters just start on a new page.
In which application? Scrivener’s Compile settings, or what you see in Word?
Again, Word uses section breaks to define the “start” and “end” points for a header/footer setting. If you want to change the header – including excluding it – Word will need a section break in order to do that.
Let’s try to keep the conversation between humans, please. That long LLM-generated response that was posted contained numerous inaccuracies, at almost every point.
Creating section breaks is not a bug, it is a necessary piece of technology to achieve certain types of document settings. If you do not use those settings, then Scrivener will fall back to using regular page breaks. Do note however that this only works with RTF at the moment, and possibly also ODT and DOCX if you install Java and use that converter instead of Scrivener’s native converter (I haven’t tested that though).
That part, specifically, might be a bug in the native converter, I’ll look into it. (See below.)
Here is how to disable all of the features in Scrivener that would require or benefit from section breaks:
If you absolutely must have a .docx file, then convert it using Word or LibreOffice, or like I said, install Java and then go into Settings: Sharing: Conversion tab, and tick the option to use the Java-based DOCX converter (you will need to restart Scrivener after installing Java to see this option).
Update: okay, I’ve found a ticket describing an aspect of this problem with DOCX output. The developer responded that there is no intention to make the native DOCX converter use regular page breaks, as they are evidently too integral to how Word works. So stick with RTF or Java conversion if for some reason you really do not need them.
Thank you for your human response, and I do understand the attitude. My intention was not to be provocative, but I had to find a solution as I do need a docx output to send the manuscript to the editor (who unfortunately doesn’t work with Scrivener). I understand your update.
Oh no worries, I wasn’t thinking you were. My response about it not being a bug was in reference to how the LLM phrased things, to make sure to dispel that part of what was inaccurate about it. It generated a description that repeatedly framed the result as being a bug or flaw in Scrivener, and not a matter of configuration, with the only “100% reliable solution” being manual search and replace in Word. None of that is actually true, and much of the way it described things didn’t really make a whole lot of technical sense.
All right, if you have no way to convert an RTF file (which incidentally is a native MS Word format, which your editor may be fine with), then installing Java so you can create a .docx is probably your best choice.
The Temurin installer is one of the better ways to do that, these days. Or if you use Homebrew you can just brew install temurin. After running the installer and reloading Scrivener, ensure the following is set:
I have tested all of the above at this point, and it appears to be working. I do not have Word itself, but if I load this in LibreOffice or Nisus Writer Pro, and examine the break it looks like a simple page break, and modifying the header/footer text from anywhere in the document changes the entire document.
Thank you, That’s an easy way.