I am having a problem where my uploads after compile to Amazon do not have the same font size as my project in Scriviner. It’s making me crazy. What do I need to do to compile a PDF for paperback book so that it shows the font sizes I choose in Scriviner?
You would probably want to start with Default rather than one of the compile formats that changes how the text looks. Obviously it’s a bit vanilla that way, but that may be what you want if you’ve put all of the hard work of formatting into the writing process.
Is Default found… where? Is it on the compile window?
For instance, in Scriviner, the title page shows a very large font, as I selected it. However, after compiling and uploading the document to Amazon, it comes out as a 13 font. How do I compile and upload to Amazon so that my selected font works?
I tried an experiment and changed the font size in one of my chapters to be crazy large. Then, when I compiled and uploaded to view on the Amazon preview feature, it was the same small size. This does not make sense to me at all. Why does the font sizes I chose in my writing not translate when I compile and upload?
Because the software is fundamentally not designed to work like a word processor, from the ground up. In short the editor interface is for you, not your readers. The whole point of compile is to take your text and format it to a particular specification or look. If you need Times 12pt for one person but want to proof in Courier 12pt for yourself, you can do that with a simple flip of the switch rather than wasting time changing fonts back and forth. It’s the sort of thing you should probably go through the tutorial on at some point, via the Help menu.
But again, for the sake of expediency, you should just use the “Default” compile format, which doesn’t change your text at all.
Is Default found… where? Is it on the compile window?
Yes, in the left sidebar where you choose how the output is going to look. You may still want to go through the tutorial on compiling though, as you’ll probably find you want to change something, and without an introduction into how it works, it may be difficult to figure that out.
Worst case you can just use Default to get it out the way you typed it and finish up the design in a better program for doing that. We don’t really intend this program to be a publishing platform. That’s a whole different set of tools, few of which have anything to do with writing. But if it works for you, that’s fine.
This does not make sense to me at all.
Yeah, and what you’re saying makes no sense to me. I’ve never written in a tool that exports the way you type, starting with a manual typewriter all the way up to today, and don’t understand why anyone likes that. 
Welcome to the other side.
OK, thanks for the response. My first book, “The Longest Road: Whole Lotta Love at Live Aid,” compiled and uploaded perfectly, (Paper-back) including different font sizes for the Title Page, Dedication etc. That’s why I’m having difficulty understanding whats going wrong this time. Oh well.
Okay, if you were using a stylised format like that, it could be that in the past you had assigned special Layouts (the setup in the middle of the compile overview window) to accommodate them. For example if you start with the “General Non-Fiction” template (you can go ahead and make a quick test project using that if you want to follow along):
- Expand the “Front Matter” folder, and click on the “Paperback” subfolder.
- Switch the view to Outline, with
View ▸ Outline. In the “Section Type” column you’ll see how these pages with special formatting are assigned to “Front Matter”. The table of contents has a special type of its own as well, since its formatting can be particular with the indents and tab stops involved. - Now open Compile, and click on one of the Paperback formats in the sidebar.
- See how in the middle column, “Front Matter” is assigned to a layout that doesn’t change the formatting of the text at all? If you scroll through those assigned layouts you’ll see that most of them do format the body text to be uniform and tidy, as well as add fancy headings from the binder titles and so on. But for those special pages with no headings and custom formatting (rather than body text), you’ve got “As-Is” selected. This can be confirmed by clicking the
Assign Section Layouts...button and choosing “Front Matter” in the left sidebar.
Out of the box, this template works the way you would want, I think. Naturally all of that can be changed though, either deliberately or accidentally. If this time around you started with a blank project, or something else that didn’t have all of this set up for you, it may be you don’t have the same ingredients you did before, or maybe somehow they were changed at some point and should be wired back up the right way. You should be able to keep this sample template project open to the side, and go through in your main project and set things up the way you want, using it as a frame of reference.
Amber, thank you. I already did it in default and saw some changes. I’ll need to do more, and will apply your helpful suggestions. For now, it’s time to walk away for a bit. Thanks again