Copy of paperback format and OneDrive

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
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Hi, OneDrive is having an issue syncing my project that has a copy of the default paperback compile format. The error is “The name contains characters that are not allowed”. Because the filename has 2 double quotes

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See OneDrive can rename files with invalid characters

The problem here is that the files that are perfectly fine for MacOS are not accepted by Microsoft’s OneDrive (as detailed in the above link). And the files that don’t work might be named by Scrivener and not under your control. And if you start renaming files, or letting Onedrive rename them, the project may then corrupt and not be useable by Scrivener. ouch.

I guess what I would try first is to get the project off Onedrive soonest. Perhaps try by making a Scrivener backup stored to your Mac folder, say ~/Backups/Scrivener. Then restore that project to a Mac folder, say ~/Apps/Scrivener and do you work there until you can find a way to make Onedrive work for you. Check for file names in Binder for names that you might have which are unallowed by Onedrive. This might not work if Scrivener does not like what Onedrive may have done to the files. Dunno.

Others may have other ideas based on their OneDrive experience. There may be other past posts here that you can find via search (I did not do that for you). I use Dropbox and have never had this issue with Scrivener projects.

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WHICH file, though? I haven’t seen any Scrivener-generated filenames like that.

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Scrivener’s internally generated names are strictly alphanumeric (plus hyphens), to avoid exactly this problem.

The Export command will attempt to use Binder titles, which can contain user-supplied illegal characters. And of course the Project filename will be whatever the user supplies.

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i wasn’t sure about that. so an inspection of user names may fix this.

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Paperback (5.06" x 7.81") Copy.scrformat

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was generated by Scrivener

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“Copy.” It’s a copy of the format that you made in order to edit it. (The original is part of the Scrivener application and cannot be changed. And also does not synchronize as part of a project.) So the solution is to edit the format in Scrivener and change its name.

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Thanks, that worked!

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