Now having a problem when compiling to documents (e-pub) I have gone through the entire book in the editor and manually indented every paragraph, or “quote.” It looks beautiful, just the way I want in the editor. However, when compiling and sending to my documents, the indents are now gone. It shows up after compiling as block left/right with only one paragraph indented in the entire book. At my wits end. I want the published e-book to appear as it is in the editor. Help please.
Now having a problem when compiling to documents (e-pub) I have gone through the entire book in the editor and manually indented every paragraph, or “quote.” It looks beautiful, just the way I want in the editor. However, when compiling and sending to my documents, the indents are now gone. It shows up after compiling as block left/right with only one paragraph indented in the entire book. At my wits end. I want the published e-book to appear as it is in the editor. Help please.
Double click on the compile format you used (left side of the compile panel),
and uncheck this :
P.S. That is not the best way to do things, but by your description, it should do for now.
Uncheck it for all elements of the list in the top section.
Or: assign the section type(s) in use in your project to compile “as is”, from the main compile panel.
Else, the best way to do it would be to format the demo text in the bottom section (first screenshot) to look the way you want it to, and use styles for the “special” paragraphs that differ.
I’m sorry you thought you had to invest so much time in it.
That is NOT the way to do things.
You could have done it in less than 10 minutes…
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Well, I would rather do things the correct/easy way. In your first example (large blue arrow) I do not see “Override text and notes formatting,” on my MAC version.
I unfortunately can’t help with that.
@drmajorbob @gr
Perhaps then the second option I proposed will do better for you…
So, I guess that means you are giving me examples for a Windows style Scrivener. Thanks for the help. Was not Scrivener originally designed for MAC? One last question, is support for my MAC version available? Again, thank you.
Second option should work for you.
There is only a few differences between the Windows and Mac versions by the way.
And you might then want to consider stating what you are using in your profile.
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I did find the window for “As Is,” and compiled again. Still, in my documents, the indents do not appear.
My guess is that it has everything to do with this. If you did what it sounds like you did, then you don’t even have paragraphs in your book. You have one very long paragraph that has been manipulated to appear as though it is broken up into paragraphs. This was done by inserting large amounts of whitespace between some sentences, such that at one very specific and completely arbitrary layout, Scrivener’s text editor, it has the illusion of being broken up into paragraphs.
Change the width of the editor though, and the illusion is broken.
Or export to an ebook format where there is no such thing as a predictable width, and it will never work—not that it would ever work, since tabs are not something ebooks have any concept of. They are ignored. Generally speaking tabs are not an indenting tool, but that is especially true for ebooks.
So if all of the above is true, no amount of formatting in compile will fix this.
So many settings … easy to miss one tiny thing like that. Certainly not bad in any way, especially when you give so freely of your time to help others. Complete respect and admiration from this sofa-surfer. 
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Hmmm… I have two books published on Amazon. “Cadillac Hubie,” and, “The Longest Road, Whole Lotta Love at Live Aid.” When I look at both books on my Kindle E-Reader, the paragraph/quote indents are perfect. I tried to also upload both to other vendors, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo, Apple Books. “Cadillac Hubie,” was accepted, Longest Road was rejected due to a file error that has somehow invaded the document. So, by taking the PDF and copy/paste into the editor has created this problem. This seems to overly complicated and difficult to me, a man who was not raised during the emerging computer era. As a result of my lack of understanding, I somehow deleted the Longest Road from my Scriviner. Caddy Hubie is still there. If there was a way to retrieve the original document, then perhaps that would fix this. Or, maybe I can somehow fix the Longest Road file error in my documents. There are other little problems I’ve discovered during this episode that do not make any sense to me. For instance, at one place in the book (after compiling) one paragraph is indented. Why, I wonder? Also, chapter titles that I placed at the heading of each chapter were capitalized although I typed them in upper/lower case. Some of the chapter headings have three words capitalized and the final word in lower case. I think something is wrong with this program. When you tell the compile part to compile as shown in the editor, it should do as instructed. This should not be so difficult. I would even type the entire book into the editor if necessary. I know that a teenager, familiar with this setup would most likely click on one little thing and solve this dilemma. I do appreciate all of the patience afforded me during this problem solving exercise. I won’t give up because there just has to be a simple way to fix this problem. I believe this because the first time I wrote these two novels these problems did not crop up. Thanks to all for your generous help. Rad
The View → Text Editing → Show Invisibles command can be very helpful in situations like this. It will show the specific “white space” characters that are creating what you see in the Editor.
Vincent, I just did as you portrayed by going to format, section layouts, and selected “text and notes use custom formatting.” I saved it. There was no change in the compiling to my documents. No paragraph indents or quotation indents appear in the document. Also, instead of aligning text to the left margin, it is aligned both left and right which is not what I selected in the editor. I am at my wits end. Something is very wrong here.
perhaps post a screen shot here with the invisibles (see @kewms post above) for better help.
First, you don’t want to use custom formatting at all. It is the opposite.
You want to use “editor formatting”. As in SWM’s screenshot.
Else, are you by any chance using styles in your body text ?
OK, I used the format as you depicted in your last screenshot. I’ll try the one from SWM and see what happens. I am sorry, I don’t understand what you mean by, “using styles in your body text.”
Thanks for the input. I just changed it to, “Text and notes use editor formatting,” to no avail as depicted in your screenshot. My book as depicted in the editor will not translate to my documents with the paragraph indents displayed. I can not figure out what I am doing wrong despite all your generous help.
Did you change it for all elements of the list in the top section ?