I’ve been a long-time Scrivener user. I write mostly research in the humanities, and thus I rely on excellent compatibility with reference management software and easy footnote systems. I have been using Bookends for my footnotes, in part because it was recommended for use with Scrivener.
Now, for years now, I have encountered a problem when compiling large files. After compiling my manuscript, I usually take a final look through word and make sure everything is formatted correctly, and every time, all my footnotes in word are corrupted. That means, the font and style for the footnote (superscript) is now normal standard script, all footnotes are indented, and they often have a paragraph spacing (1.3). This means, every time, I have to correct this, and it takes me a while to figure out how to change the format issues - oftentimes I have to do multiple footnotes manually, etc. It is stressful and makes me resent working with Scrivener because it costs me a tremendous amount of extra time that I don’t plan into my submission processes.
I usually forget about it quickly after the process because I don’t compile documents that often (only when they are done). But I come back at the same problem time and again. Any ideas, solutions, comments? Thanks so much!
Dom
Thanks for the comment and for your help. I was able to change the settings in the style pane now, and it worked on the document. However, I still am confused about the auto-formatting options in word. Could you specify where I could normalize the text?
Much appreciated!
Dom
That’s really a Word support question, and should be directed to them.
A fundamental idea of Word, though, is that every document has a stylesheet. By default, this will be “normal.dot,” and new documents will automatically take on its attributes.
I don’t use Word, so can’t recommend how to deal with it, but my experience with footnotes on compiling to RTF and opening in Nisus Writer Pro might act as a pointer.
The thing with exporting to RTF is that the footnotes are marked as footnotes, but are also given “Normal” style from the fact that they are “No Style” in Scrivener. The “Normal” style assignment overrides the “Footnote” style assignment. So in NWP I have to select all the footnote texts and remove the “Normal” style assignment, at which point they are then formatted as footnotes (or endnotes) as I have set.
That is very easy to do in NWP, but as I don’t use Word (and don’t compile to DOCX, though I would suspect that your footnote formatting problem has a similar source) I can’t advise on a solution.
