Compiling to Microsoft Word

Scrivener Scrivener for Windows
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1

I compile to MS Word (from Scrivener 3 for Windows) quite often to share documents with others and for final editing. However, I’m finding issues I can’t seem to resolve.

  • The Word document always seems to open with the US dictionary/spelling set, even though my default Word documents don’t when opened directly in Word.

*Even though I have the Settings - Remove indent from first paragraph - checked, it doesn’t.

  • The font is staying the same as the one in Scrivener. The ‘overide …’ box is checked.

Are these glitches I need to report or am I missing a setting?

2

I’ve just checked an earlier project and the indent and font issues above don’t exist - so it’s probably a glitch in my current project. More investigation required.
The issue of US spelling still exists in earlier projects.

3

Problem with fonts and indents appears to be because I’d set a style in the editor. When I reverted to ‘No style’ the compiling worked fine. This seems counter to the idea that it doesn’t matter what it looks like in the Editor, compilation can be set how we wish. There seems to be no way to amend this ‘No style’ default to get a required appearance in the Editor.
Still didn’t make a difference to the US spell checker though.

4

It’s perfectly viable to use styles in the text, you just have to be aware of the implications, and aware of the fact that if you want to change what styled text looks like then you need to tell the compiler about your intentions, using the Styles compile format designer pane (see §24.4, Styles, in the user manual PDF). Otherwise, it will assume you are using styles at their basic level of operation: to preserve the formatting of text to the degree that the style itself stipulates.

But this is why we encourage not using body text styles for new users, because it is significantly easier to simply not use something, than it is learning enough about how styles work internally and through compile to gain control over them. One can easily get bogged down in details and learning how a different system works, if they have to immerse themselves in its factors right off the start.

And in most cases I would say there is no good reason to use body text styles anyway. Even if that is what you need in the final output because of some specific template with a named paragraph style that you’re supposed to use: Section Layouts can apply styles to text that isn’t already styled.

As to the rest, I don’t know what you mean about the spell checker, but if you’re referring to the specified document language, that’s never been something we’ve had good control over. It deliberately sets the document that way. We might have some ideas for how to improve this, but it’ll take some effort and probably always require you to manually change the language setting somewhere.

5

True. In Word, select all, change the dictionary and save. Next time you revisit the Word file it will still be in your default dictionary.
But after a fresh compile it’s back to square 1.
And the bugger with Word is that if you correct something in Scrivener and cut and paste the piece into Word formatted to your non-US default dictionary, the piece you paste invokes the US dictionary. I had to contend with that with a Read Aloud read-through edit.

1 Like
6

Thanks for the response Amber V.
The manual tells me I can lay out the text however I wish in the Editor, then handle my final layout in the Compiler, which is what I wanted to do. I wanted a double-spaced, larger font for working in, then single spaced, standard-sized font for final output. If setting a style in the Editor over-rides this, then I’ll just stick with ‘No style’.
I’m not a Scrivener novice, having written seven novels using it, including the first couple in Scrivener 1, but haven’t come across this issue before - perhaps because I’ve not been tempted to use styles in the Editor and just compiled how I want it.
On the other point - It isn’t the Scrivener spell checker which is the issue - this is set to UK English as required. It is when it compiles to a Word .docx file. My Normal.dot Word template is also set to UK English but when compiled (which I would have thought should be using my Normal.dot template) it reverts to US English. Not a real problem, just a slight niggle.

7

Sorry, I didn’t meant to imply you were a new user, just to point out that this will tend to be the route you often see espoused here on the forums, in the tutorials, the user manual and so forth. It’s the easier way to learn the software so that’s the one that gets talked about. What I was mainly getting at is that it’s not the only way to use it, and that the style system as it is designed does indeed completely fit in with that concept of being able to format for yourself in the editor, and format for your needed output in the compiler.

A styled block quote can be green text in the editor, like in an email composer if that’s what you prefer, but print standard double-spaced output when compiled. In fact that’s how all of the stock styles in the default settings work with our stock compile formats. The way the styles are designed to look in the editor don’t really match any of the designed outputs, like Modern or Manuscript Times—yet they will convert as needed based on how they were configured. So it stands to reason a style you call “Normal” in the editor could do the very same thing (in fact, a good number of our built-ins even convert “Body” if used, as that is a pretty safe assumption to make).

As for why you haven’t encountered it before, it could also be because styles were only added in the most recent major version. In v1 for instance, the closest analogy was a “formatting preset” tool that simply stored some saved settings that could be applied to text, with no further connection to that preset once it was applied. A formatting macro, really, and the only way to protect text from completely changing its formatting was with a “preserve formatting” setting, you may recall. That’s still there for legacy compatibility, but nowadays styles do all of that and much more.

My Normal.dot Word template is also set to UK English but when compiled (which I would have thought should be using my Normal.dot template) it reverts to US English. Not a real problem, just a slight niggle.

Ah okay, yes it has no awareness of your Normal.dot file (I don’t know if that would even be possible). I think if we do add something along these lines, it would be more like a dropdown in the Metadata tab. I don’t think using your spell check settings or even the UI language would be the right way to go as they may not represent the document being produced.

But who knows, we might go with something more like the “Normal.dot” approach in the future as that would for some cases make for a streamlined document production.

8

Just read, and re-read, section 17 of manual, and now understand that Styles are instructions to the Compiler which do override the Compile setup. Seems counter-intuitive to me, but if that’s the way it works, I can live with it. I see that if I amend the font, indentation, etc whilst in ‘No style’ the Compile setup overtides this - which is fine.

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9

Perhaps, though I would think that styles that didn’t do anything through the compiler would then be, by default, somewhat not worth using and quite frustrating. Why take the time to tag your text if it all vanishes without a bunch of meticulous setup? To me that feels like the counter-intuitive thing, given how styles are treated in all other programs: as de facto formatting even more so than semantic tagging. Now, that something like a Comment would vanish when you compile, that makes sense! But if styles were meant to do that, or least just lose the formatting 100%, we’d probably want to call it something else entirely.

Anyway, hopefully by now the design intent is clearer and you find ways to take advantage of it. It’s a very powerful tool if you need it, and something that can help make your documents better, as well as improve your writing environment.

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10

Interestingly, I found that when I compiled to the earlier Microsoft Word 1997-2004, it stayed with the UK English spell checker. I’ve actually resolved it by removing the US proofing dictionary in Word and it now seems to spell check in UK English.

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11

That is interesting. It could be that with the older format it is left “blank” and so using your defaults, and in the newer document format it may be as I speculated, more directly stipulating US-en, but if that no longer exists on the machine then it would make sense to also fall back to your defaults. A nice workaround at any rate, if that’s what is going on and one does not need “color” at any point in their life. :smiley:

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12

Hi, I updated my Scrivener yesterday and now when I compile my formatting is wrong. Like @CharlieGarratt my first paragraphs are indented and I am unable to fix this. Unlike @CharlieGarratt , I am a new user and I am lost. I looked at the manual and can’t even figure how to find the dialog box shown as figure 24-11. please help.

13

The figure you reference is part of the compile format and you need to edit whichever format you’re using.

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To do this you double click on it. If it’s a built in format you’ll be asked to copy, then edit.

Snag_d77c787
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Once you have done that you can go to the styles.

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Hope this helps.

Phil

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Thank you @philwild I will give that a try!

15

Scrivener used to flatten the first paragraph automatically when I compiled using Manuscript (Times) but after the most recent update it stopped. Could this be a bug?

Technically @philwild suggestion will work but I have 62 chapters in this novel, and I would need to edit the format one at time for every chapter. It seems easier just to remove the indent in Word post compile at this point or is there something I am missing?