I’m running Scrivener 2.2 on a Mac with OS 10.6.8 and I’m going bananas trying to compile. I’ve got two projects that I’m compiling to PDF for Createspace. Both of them use the same font size, the same margins, the same everything. Yet Project #1 compiles fine, but Project #2 compiles and suddenly the margins are doubled, the font is squished and tiny, and it looks bizarre.
The only difference I can find is that Project #1 was written entirely in Scrivener, whereas Project #2 started as an RTF that I imported. However, I’ve made so many changes and rewrites in Scrivener that the idea of re-importing and starting from scratch fills me with despair. I’ve been working on it in Scrivener for about 6 months.
How can I hunt down whatever weird setting is ruining my life?
The first thing I’d suggest (assuming the structure you have, the fonts, etc. that you want are all very similar): In the project that’s working, save your compile settings (using the Manage button in the lower left of the dialogue). Then close & reopen the other, and select that saved compile setting and compile. If everything comes out right, then it was your compile settings. If it doesn’t, then it’s to do with your text, and you can move on knowing which side of the issue you really need to work on. If there are substantial differences that you WANT in the compile settings for the “other” project, save those settings in case you have to go back to them after this experiment.
That’s a great idea, actually, and I just tried it and there was no difference. Do you think this could be some kind of bizarre settings thing that transferred over originally when I brought this over from Word all that time ago?
EDIT: Be sure to do a backup of your Project before attempting any of this. I could be leading you down a path to chaos.
That’s too bad it didn’t fix the matter.
From my observations on the site, it could indeed be something to do with the initial import.
Have you tried selecting a document in the binder (one that exhibits the bad formatting in your compile output), and going to Documents->Convert->Formatting to Default Text Style. If that works, just select all of your text documents in the binder and run that command again. If it doesn’t work…
How much formatting did you do with your text? Could you stand to loose all of your bold, underline, and maybe footnotes? If so, you might try going to File->Export->Files and selecting to export as Plain Text. Then open one of those (Text Edit should be the default editor for them), and check out the formatting that looks so strange in your compiled output. If it looks good there, then you might be able to just copy & paste that back over the text in your editor. Or you might have to import those documents and replace the originals. You can do that selectively, if you can figure out which files contain the problematic formatting.
Also worth checking in your compile settings (for the project that isn’t working) whether you have “override text and notes formatting” checked in the Formatting section and how Page Settings are set up. If override isn’t checked, then the compiler is using the formatting that you see in Scrivener’s editor, which may be fine for the first project but not right in the second; overriding and setting up the formatting in compile should fix it. Page Settings might be different from the working project if you’re using project-specific page settings, so deselecting that and making sure the margin settings, etc., in the compile window are as you want them may solve the issue.
