Two days ago, I had a problem I’ve experienced intermittently before. On a number of pages, the text came out as only a few lines per page. I had to strip all the formatting out to get rid of the white space. I was exporting to Word, RTF.
Today, compile is deleting my entire chapter one.
The chapters have also been re-numbered and the font changed from TNR to Courier. I went into Word and made sure the default for Word is TNR. I also have the Scrivener MS in TNR.
This time, I tried the compile in a .doc format instead of rtf. No change except that the re-numbering got even more bizarre.
I should also fess up that I have no idea what the level settings are and can’t find anything that explains them. If these have something to do with the output, which obviously they do, it would be nice to have an explanation somewhere. No matter how I compile, something is always wrong – usually no chapter titles or double and incorrect ones. I’ve been stripping out and inserting my own chapter heads but I have to think this is correctable somewhere in the program.
I’m sorry you’re having such a frustrating time. The learning curve can be steep at first, it’s true, but you’re definitely having more than the usual run of problems.
If you haven’t already, you might want to have a look at Step 16 of the Interactive Tutorial when you get a chance. It walks through what the major components of the Compile dialog do and can really help you find your bearings among the mass of options.
On the specific issues you’re having…
The most likely reason for Chapter One to be missing is that you didn’t tell Compile to include it. Look at the Contents pane of the Compile dialog and make sure that all the sections (and subsections) you want have the Include box in the first column checked. On the same pane, look to be sure “Pg Break Before” isn’t checked for any of the documents. That might be a cause for the short pages problem. You might eventually want to page break before chapters, but while you’re troubleshooting it’s easier to turn it off entirely.
The most likely reason for the font change to Courier would be on the Formatting pane. Check to make sure the “override text and notes formatting” box is not checked. That will compile the manuscript “as-is,” as it appears in the editor. Again, you might eventually want to do something more complicated, but keep it simple for now.
On the Page Settings pane, make sure your page size and margin settings are reasonable. That’s another potential cause of the short pages problem.
The re-numbering might be a side effect of the missing chapter one. Could you check the things I’ve noted above, re-compile, and see if that takes care of the problem? If not, could you explain what’s happening in a little more detail?
Katherine, maybe you can help me because I seem to have the same problem.
When I compile to PDF, the format is always how it looks in the editor. I tried using the two Novel templates (courier and times) and I tried checking and unchecking the box on the formatting tab.
In all cases, the document prints in single space using the font I set for the editor.