Control indents in my novel

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

Hello :slight_smile:

I’ve been using Scrivener to write and mostly just export chapters as PDFs to work with them on my iPad.

I am now exploring exporting to kindle format.

I’m struggling with making the export replicate my format for the work.

I don’t use Scrivener’s chapter headings. I simply untick the chapter folder, and create a separate page start for each document. This allows me to Have the chapter title presented as I wish. Annoyingly this means (I believe) Scrivener sees my chapter title as the first paragraph.

I also precede each passage with a characters name. And then the actual first paragraph after the characters name is not indented. All subsequent paragraphs are indented until I get to a new passage in a chapter when I have another characters name, not indented.

So, to date I cannot replicate this control in export. I can allow Scrivener to do its thing, in which case the Chapter title is not indented, but the character name and the first paragraph are.

Or I tick the ‘as is’ option on the list of docs to be included in the export, but it just removes all the tab indents and every paragraph is not indented.

Is there are a way to export using the format I have created when writing?

An example of layout, in case it helps:

Chapter 1

Joe

First paragraph starts here. First paragraph starts here. First paragraph starts here. First paragraph starts here. First paragraph starts here. First paragraph starts here. First paragraph starts here. First paragraph starts here.

____Second paragraph indented. Second paragraph indented. Second paragraph indented. Second paragraph indented. Second paragraph indented. Second paragraph indented. Second paragraph indented. Second paragraph indented. Second paragraph indented.

____Third one too. Third one too. Third one too. Third one too. Third one too. Third one too. Third one too. Third one too. Third one too. Third one too. Third one too. Third one too. Third one too. Third one too. Third one too. Third one too.

Mary

____New paragraph for a new character indented, but the characters name that precedes it should sit flush to the left hand side. New paragraph for a new character indented, but the characters name that precedes it should sit flush to the left hand side. New paragraph for a new character indented, but the characters name that precedes it should sit flush to the left hand side. New paragraph for a new character indented, but the characters name that precedes it should sit flush to the left hand side.
____And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on.

[note: after posting I realised that the spaces before the indented paragraphs didn’t translate to the forum post, so I have placed ____ to signify the indents. Sorry, but clunky but shows the intention.]

I hope this makes sense. I’d really like to be able to control the indent formatting of the text.

Many thanks in advance if anyone can shed any light.

And I have googled tutorials on tabs/indents etc., but mostly they show you how to set it up to use the default format of the first paragraph not being indented but the rest are, which just won’t work for me.

Cheers

Jules

2

Hi, JulianBray, and welcome to the forum!

The easiest way to do this is select Format as: Original on the compile pane. Does this help in your case?

3

If there are blank lines between the chapter title and character name and text, you can select “After empty lines and centered text” from Compile > Format > Options > Remove First Paragraph Indents. Otherwise, as r6d2 says, you may just wish to format the text yourself rather than override the formatting in Compile.

4

Thanks guys,

so I tested Format as Original. It did indeed keep the font sizes I set up etc, but for some reason it ignored all my tab indenting and all paragraphs started flush on the left, whereas in my document I have tabbed them in.

If i’m missing something obvious please let me know, otherwise if it is a bit more complex could you recommend either a tutorial to help me sort this, or some keywords to type into google to find a tutorial that would be relevant to this issue.

Kind of frustrating :slight_smile:

I have, on a side note, figured out a kind of workaround (though this may be the way to actually do it, who knows).

I break a chapter into separate scenes, naming each scene the characters name.

I set the Chapter Title for the folder how I want it on the page (ie: font size and location). Then add the title option to the level of the document, which writes the name of the file (now labelled to the character the scene relates to.

I precede each chapter folder with a page break and then add all the subsequent scenes.

This delivers a chapter where:

the chapter title is where I want in the font size I want.
each character name is flush to the left side
the first paragraph after the character name is flush to the left side (as it is now the first paragraph)
all subsequent paragraphs in the characters scene are indented (though struggling to figure out how to increase that indent, but that’s for another post if google fails me.

This method is kind of cumbersome as before all scenes in one chapter were in one document, but if i can’t get that to work at least this method works… and as i said, it may be the way it is meant to be done.

Cheers

5

Just in case you’ve not seen it yet, I suggest you to try the Scrivener Tutorial offered when you start the program. It does a pretty good job showing you the basics of compiling.

Otherwise, if you want to make sure your indents don’t get changed by compiling, uncheck the Override text and notes formatting option show below.

Override text.png

6

When you say you have them “tabbed in”, do you mean that you are actually using the tab key to indent them? Is so that is your problem, because HTML - which e-books use - don’t support tabs. You need to use first line indents instead for them to work in e-books.

All the best,
Keith

7

Hello all.

So thank you very much. Between you all I have got there :slight_smile:

First line indents instead of tabbing was a big help, thank you, but amongst all the advice and experimenting off the back of them I can now control how all the text is laid out.

I may discover issues further down the line but for now, many thanks :slight_smile:

8

Glad you got it sorted!