As stated, I’m used to sending single chapters back and forth to my co-author, and I absolutely have to Keep It Simple, Silly, because she does not like Scrivener.
I’m finding Scrivener lets me organize the writing easier, but sending an entire project back and forth is NOT practical for us.
So I have to be able to export (or compile) individual pieces of the work.
Marylinx, you can compile only the contents of a selected folder using the top combo inside the Compile > Contents area. You can check the image attached.
Certainly, you can compile as much or as little as you need.
Here’s a quick example that approximates your Binder set up:
So, say I want to compile only Chapter 6 and its subdocument Chapter 6A.
Go into the Compiler and make sure that only Chapter 6 and 6A are checked in the Include Column. Tip: if Everything is preselected - save yourself some clicking by doing an Alt+Click to deselect everything first - then you can select only those documents you want.
Or, as Tiho said above, use the compile group dropdown to select the correct folder - Chapter 6 in this case, and then Chapter 6 and it’s subdocuments will be the only things that show up:
And if you don’t want to mess with the formatting and all that, just tick those As-Is boxes and it’ll output just as you see it in Scrivener.
Thanks. I’m going to have to test this out, because I will have to explain it to my co-author, who finally DL her own copy of Scrivener. She tried it once before and hated it.
Rather than ticking “As-is” for every scene, you’ll probably want to just deselect “Override text and notes formatting” in the Formatting section of compile. That will give you the formatting you see in the editor, but will also include titles or title prefixes (e.g. chapter numbering) that you may have set up, where as documents marked “as-is” compile only their document text regardless of other settings (no titles, no synopsis, etc.). It’s also just faster.
I suppose this will become second nature as I get used to it, but right at the moment, I feel as if I am in a learning curve which has turned into an Immelman.
I am going to have to create a step-by-step directions sheet with illustrative clips for both me AND my co-author.
The Scrivener manual is very nice, but it isn’t laid out the way I think.
Oh, yes – is it possible to have more than one Compile set-up associated with a project?
I am having similar issues and made a separate post for help. But I think I found out what was causing the problem and thought I’d share with you.
Up until a couple of days ago, when I exported a file, I had no problems. I exported as either .rtf or .docx and I got a single file delivered to my chosen folder. Now suddenly, with the same commands, I’m getting a folder within a folder and the file I wanted was buried in the interior folder.
I’ve been playing around with different options, trying to solve this mystery and found what worked for me.
It started happening when I began consistently exporting the same file. First I changed the name of the file, but that didn’t help.
Then I tried exporting a file I’d never exported before. I got the desired results–just a single file.
So I created a new Scrivener doc and copy/pasted the troublesome file into it, choosing a file different name. Bingo! Back in business!
So I’m guessing that this is some bug or weird anomaly in Scrivener that overrides our commands. Maybe it thinks we actually need that folder since we export the same file over and over. It’s still a mystery, but one I can manage now.
Hope this make sense.
Good luck!
The current compile settings are saved with the project when you compile or use Save & Close, but you can use the “Save Preset…” option to save your compile settings. That won’t save the contents–that is, which documents in the project are going to be compiled–or the files’ “as-is” or “page break before” states; all of that is specific to a project (the latter two are saved as part of the individual document’s meta-data) and presets can be loaded for any project. But it will save everything else, so your separators, your formatting for the different levels, your page settings, etc.
So you could for instance create a preset for compiling to an ebook format and another for compiling as a Word .docx file and another as just plain-text and switch between them. The compile contents will be remembered through changing presets, and you’ll just need to change that when you’re ready to compile a different part of the project.
Did your document acquire a subdocument, so that it’s now a document group? That would cause the change you saw, and explain why just copying and pasting the text of the document to a different file would have caused it to use the old behaviour.
Hm, did you check the location for saving the file after you moved the subdocuments? If you’d just exported and created a folder, that folder would’ve been the new default, so essentially you’d be saving the new export into the folder you created during the last export (with the subdocuments). That shouldn’t happen, but it does at the moment and could certainly cause this confusion.
