Formatting journal or letter sections of book - section types styling

I understand that I’m supposed to use Section Types to format my document for compile, similar to CSS in that I can make changes once and apply them to any section specified.

So, I’ve created a new section type called “Diary entries” These should be formatted a little differently, such as with wider margins and maybe a different font or italics, to set them apart.

However, I do not see where to set the formatting for custom section types.

  • It’s not under Section Types, that’s just where I name them
  • It’s not under Formatting, that is just formatting the whole project
  • Under compile, Formats seems to apply to the whole document and Assign Section Layouts doesn’t have formatting options, aside from font

I’m stumped. Am I overlooking it? Looking in the wrong place? How do I create the special formatting for a particular section type?

I would also like to create a section type for Epigraphs, since they are usually aligned right, smaller text, etc. But I am just not seeing how this works.

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You’re right about the purpose of Section Types – they allow you to designate what each binder document is, and you use Section Layouts to tell the compiler what each type should look like – so all the formatting is done in the Compiler.

In the Compile dialogue, choose Assign Section Layouts in the normal way, and click on your ‘Diary Entries’ Section Type in the left hand panel. Then choose a dummy format from one of the ones on the right – there probably won’t be one exactly right, but choose the nearest one. Then click on the little pencil icon and you’ll be given the choice to duplicate and edit the whole format – you’ll be given the chance to give this new compile format a new name.

That will bring up a new dialogue. Choose Section Layouts and you’ll see a list of the available layouts. You can either modify one of the existing layouts, or create one completely from scratch if you want: modifying is easier…

Below the list of layouts, there’s a dummy text box below, which you can use to change the format of that layout – the controls will be familiar to you as they’re the standard RTF formatting controls, while the tabs below give you (a lot of) options to change the nature and format of titles and so on. Just make sure you tick the ‘Override text and notes formatting’ so the icons become ‘live’.

For example, to make the body text italic, click in the body text and then on the italics icon; change the ruler to change the margins, etc.

Make the changes you want, then click Test to see the effect. You’ll probably have to experiment a bit to get what you want, but when you’re happy, save and then you can compile the document for real.

The process for creating an Epigraph would be exactly the same: set up the Epigraph section type in Project Settings > Section Types, then adopt and/or adapt a Section Layout in the compilation dialogue.

HTH.

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To add a little design discussion to the excellent post of details above, you’re definitely on the right path to thinking of Scrivener’s system a bit like how CSS works against HTML. The ingredients however are that Types are more like the HTML in this equation. They are, as you’ve discovered, purely semantic with no formatting declarations. Your diary entry type is similar in function to that of a <blockquote>. It is a declaration of meaning without any thought to presentation. It is the high level structure of your work. And as such you should make as many of them as you need to give your outline that necessary structure.

The compiler is the CSS side of the equation, and Section Layouts are like all the stuff inside of the brackets in blockquote { ... }. So that is where you make it look the way you want. As with swapping out stylesheets for print vs mobile vs desktop, swapping Formats, with their provided Layouts, is analogous to @media sections in a .css file. You can have your eBook design handle diary entries one way, and entirely another way in word processor output.

Styles are worth looking into next, since they are text level and pick up where it becomes awkward to break things further down in the binder outline. They operate very similarly in the sense that the Format can dictate how they appear. They are different from Section Types though, in that if you don’t declare anything in the Styles pane of the Format Designer, the editor formatting will indeed just be passed through. A lot of our built-in formats will declare overrides for the stock style samples we provide though, so that a caption ends up looking appropriate for a 12pt Courier manuscript, etc.

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