Compiling...so basic it's almost embarrassing.

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

I"m so sorry to have to post this, as it seems so basic, but I’m at wits end. I remember when compiling my last book, using Scrivener’s previous iteration, that there was a way to check boxes of files that you wanted to compile in a draft. How does that happen in the new version?
I have tons of folders under “research,” each corresponding to a different chapter. And within each folder resides a “rough draft” of the proposed chapter text, as well as notes, relevant dox, etc. Is there a way to run down the list of chapters and check the boxes, or whatever, for these rough draft text files and end up with one document, thereby excluding all the files full of notes, etc?

Thanks so much for any and all help!

2

The checkboxes still exist, on the Contents tab of the Compile window.

However, material that you want to include needs to be in the Draft folder, not the Research part of the Binder.

Katherine

3

You can include or exclude documents in two ways. Either:

a) as you’re going along, from the General section of the Inspector Panel for each document: tick or unstick “Include in Compile”.

b) At compile time. File > Compile > All Options > Contents and tick / untick the include box against each document.

If you’ve got a lot to exclude at once, I’d use the second method because you don’t have to go through each document individually.

BUT,

You don’t normally compile the Research folder – that’s not really what it’s for. You can compile individual documents within it, but it’s a bit fiddly. Select all the ones you want compiled in the binder, and in the Contents pane of Compile > All Options, select Current Selection from the drop down menu and check Include subdocuments…

It’s actually much easier just to drag the folders you want into the draft folder (maintaining the hierarchy) - -then you’ll be able to turn them on and off at will.

Hope this helps,

David

4

Thanks so much for your help, Katherine and David! I’ve fooled around with files in the Draft area, the trick is, maybe I’m not finding the proper compiling window. When I go through File and click ‘compile’ I see a prompt asking if I want to export as a pdf, ebook, etc., but no screen asking what I’d like to include, no “all options” or ‘contents’. Any suggestions?

5

There’s a button on the Compile interface that will expand the compile window to show you all the various options that you can tweak. I think it’s “Summary | All Options” if you’ve updated to the latest version.