I am a severely sight impaired doctoral student and really liked the idea behind the software, but setting the font sizes is not easy and saving to a template is not working for me.
I have been through ‘options’ and set the required font, but on entering the new or existing folder or text file it returns to the default.
Similarly, having followed the tutorials etc I saved a template but the font sizes were all default again. Resized and resaved and the same issue. There was no ‘this template already exists, do you want to overwrite it’ option box. I tried to modify a Chicago style document, trying to save as a template, and still could not get it to work.
It would be appreciated if the buttons and functions were not so tiny. This would have appeal for lots of people and the miniscule icon approach seems a bit outdated now. I would have happily paid money to buy the final version but last night I was so frustrated that I uninstalled the whole thing.
I’m sorry you’ve been having trouble with the font settings. There are a couple areas in Options that change fonts–the lower section of the “Appearance” tab will affect the general interface (and there will be more settings coming, so you’ll be able to adjust the font size for the binder and outliner as well as index cards and notes) and the “Default Main Text Attributes” area of the “Editor” tab will set the default for new documents created in Scrivener. The changes you make in the Editor tab won’t be applied to existing documents, since this would mean you could easily lose formatting unintentionally, but after setting your preferences here you can select in the binder any documents that you want to change and then choose Documents>Convert Formatting to Default Text Style to update them all to your new settings. (The adjustments made to “Document Notes” and “Project Notes” under the Appearance tab likewise only affect the notes for new documents–or new projects; to change older ones, just select the text in the inspector and then use the font size drop-down menu from the Format bar to change it.)
Since these changes in the Options menu are global–they affect all projects–new projects created from templates will use the settings you’ve supplied in Options; the templates themselves don’t save a font size default. So while any documents that are saved as part of the template will have their formatting retained (they are “existing documents” in the case explained above), new documents that you create in the project based on the template will use the default settings from your Options preferences.
The icons are unlikely to change, although perhaps I’m not clear on which icons you’re referring to, as they seem to be in line with other MS applications. Do you have your display set so that text appears larger? I notice in that case Scrivener’s icons (as well as icons in a some other applications) don’t enlarge, although the text all does. I’ll drop a note on this and see what might be possible here. There may be coming an option to have text in the toolbar as well as (or instead of) icons, which might also help the situation. Meanwhile, you might find it easier to use the menus rather than the toolbar (more keyboard shortcuts will help with this as well) since the text size there increases as expected if you change your display settings.
I hope that helps. We definitely do appreciate the feedback and as I said, more options for font sizes will be coming, so maybe you’ll want to give it another whirl later on. In any case, best wishes for your doctoral work!
I seem to have changed the font size in the synopsis area of the Inspector pane to a very tiny font - not sure how, but how do I enlarge it? Using Windows 024 version or Scrivener, on a Win7 system
Thx, but I’d tried that. On my system that only affects the font on the Index cards in the Corkboard, not the font in the Synopsis on the right in the Inspector section. And, strangely, checking “use small font” actually increases the font size on the index cards.
Used to work fine, haven’t used this view in a while so not sure how/when it changed.
Maybe this is a bug.
You can set the font sizes for both the regular and small fonts in the Appearance tab of Edit>Options. The small font is just for the corkboard, as you’ve noticed, but it’s possible for you to set whatever size you want to strictly speaking, you could make the “small font” larger than the regular font–some people do this specifically to have a bigger font when working with the corkboard, where you can enlarge the card size as well, and still keep a regular font in the synopsis in the inspector.
Thx for the reply MM -
Tried various settings and have it now.
The settings in Edit/Options/Appearance/Fonts/Corkboard/Index Text change at the same time both the font in the Index card text in corkboard and the font for the text in Synopsis in Inspector pane. As do the Index Title settings.
In the pop-up at the bottom of the Corkboard screen, the checkbox for Use Small Font applies to the Index cards title and text fonts, only on the corkboard, over-riding the above settings and changing both to a “small font”. This font seems to be a fixed size - didn’t find the settings for that. But not a problem.
This all might need to be clarified eventually in the Help Documentation, if others also find it confusing. Do I need to submit a bug report for this?
Glad you got it sorted out–sorry I wasn’t more detailed in my description; I didn’t have Scrivener open when I was replying. The documentation will definitely go over all this; it’s still being written, since the beta is still changing, but as we’re nearing release and things are settling, Ioa will be able to get the manual in line with the product. So no report necessary, I’ve made a note of it and there are lots of edits going through with the manual in general.
Also, you are right, small font appears to be a set size currently on Windows. That should be changing so you can define the size for that as well, though it will still only ever apply to the corkboard. Sorry to have gone off on that–it’s that way for the Mac, and I forgot it wasn’t on Windows yet. Whoops!
