Custom image for scene break help

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

Hello scriveners,

I tried searching around the forum for this, but was unable to find anything super useful. Also, I have both Windows and Mac OS X versions of Scrivener, so I posted in both subforums. Please let me know if there is a better place to ask general questions.

I’m trying to use a custom image for scene breaks and I’ve run into a few problems.

  1. I’m not sure the optimal resolution (pixel x pixel) to make the image work well with the line spacing/font size of the manuscript. I assume there is some way to calculate this, but I’m not sure. I’m using Times New Roman, 12-point.

  2. What is the optimal way to insert these? I was able to go Edit > Insert > Image from File, but I also stumbled across someone saying breaking the text into two separate text files for the scene break using Split At Selection made the most sense. HOWEVER, that same person also mentioned being able to use a custom image during the Compile for Separators of text. I’ve got compile pulled up and I don’t see anything letting me do that with either OS X or Windows. Was this feature removed or moved at some point?

  3. What is the background color of Scrivener documents and is there a way to change it? I assume there is, but I’ve yet to find it. I ask because the first image I tried looked great (ignoring spacing issues) except that it was clearly a slightly different background than Scrivener. This really showed up when I compiled to mobi and viewed it on my Kindle.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

2

There is no way to automate any of this on Windows, so I’ll just answer here.

That really depends on what you’re doing this for, plus it is a bit subjective. What might look nice in a high quality art magazine probably won’t do so well on a Blackberry within an e-book format of some sort. :slight_smile: For e-books, since you mentioned that below, I’d try to keep it as small as possible and use dynamic em spacing units for the best results. You want to be using the Kindle Previewer simulator to test as many different screen sizes and settings as you can. Adjust the font size, theme and device types to make sure it looks good as broadly as possible.

If that sounds like an agreeable away of working to you, then I would consider it. If you’re going to be going through and pasting a graphic file in between every single scene, then you’ll already be spending a bunch of time finding these spots and doing something once you get there—might as well split while you’re there, and then set up the graphic as a separator. That way, if you change your mind about the graphic you will only need to fix it in one single place, rather than hundreds.

Using image placeholders (Mac only) is documented in §15.5.4, pg. 217–20 of the user manual. Use these whenever you need to insert an image into a plain-text environment, such as a custom separator text field in the compile settings.

For formats that support setting a background colour, you will find the setting in the Meta-Data compile option pane. Most do not, however, and thus if you have no control over the final presentation, should not be using graphics that assume anything about the background colour. This would be especially true of any e-book. The individual reader selects how the book will be presented.

3

Thanks for the response. I didn’t even know Kindle Previewer was a thing. I’ve been exporting to mobi and sending it to my own Kindle for testing. This’ll save a lot of time.

4

Yeah, it’s unfortunately a bit of a clunky tool, but there is no better way to see see what it’ll look like on a variety of devices, short of buying a stack of readers. :slight_smile: I also wish that it had an iOS simulator, that’s the one target where you do still need to have a physical device to really see what it’ll look like.