The paper I need to publish requires that the paragraphs be indented 3 spaces (not tabs - this is very specific), and that the first paragraph after a section title not be indented. I have no idea what “ins” stands (inches on the ruler?) in trying to set indents but it definitely doesn’t seem to correlate with any sort of characters. I see in preferences I can change my ruler to points or picas - is that the direction I need to be going? And what correlates with “spaces” required by this publication?
I’ll be compiling as .docx (and don’t have word to make adjustments). I have yet to figure out any combination of formatting (not overwriting formatting ) or then compiling (with overwriting) that can get me the results I want. Banging my head on this.
I have considered taking the compiled docx back into google docs but it takes my endnotes and makes them footnotes…I think I can overcome that too by copying and pasting the docx into docs format, and then using a chrome add on to make make the footnotes back into endnotes…but I worry the more I play in google docs the more chance I’ll mess something in this lengthy paper up on some other formatting.
If anyone has any ideas how I could just get this compiled like I need it initially - it would be a huge relief.
Probably because I am unclear myself. I’ve never had this particular expectation before.
The exact instructions are “The first sentence in any section is NOT indented. Starting with the second paragraph in the same section indent 3 spaces, NOT five spaces.DO NOT TAB”
Those instructions sound to my ear like they were written by someone who is accustomed to “visual formatting” in a word processor program — that is, more typewriter then typesetter. And it sounds like the person is literally asking you to put three space characters at the beginning of each paragraph. It is an unusual request. Kinda retro.
I myself can’t think of a way to have Scrivener automatically prepend space characters to each paragraph for you at compile time that doesn’t require /some/ clean up, so your inability to touch up your Word output makes this a bit of a challenge.
For what it is worth, you can easily do a brute-force replacement at compile time to insert three spaces at the start of /every/ paragraph. Not knowing your project, I am unsure how far beyond the mark this would shoot. But it is certain to require clean-up, even if it gets close. Here is how you can do it: in the compile dialog box, click the Replacements tab above the right hand pane of the dialog box. In the resulting Replacements pane, click + to add a new replacement. In the Replace field type Opt-Return (this enters a return char into that field). Tab to the With field and type Opt-Return Space Space Space. Compiling with that should result in a Word file with three spaces at the start of every paragraph except the first.*
But hopefully someone with more experience will come along here soon and may suggest something ingenious.
gr
Here is something you could try if no one comes along with a better idea. Do the compile with replacement as described above, then drop the resulting word doc back into Scrivener and let Scriv import it. Do the necessary touchup to remove any unwanted triple-spaces. Then compile /that/ to Word (do turn the Replacements item back off before proceeding!). Quick and dirty, admittedly, but it may do in a pinch.
I had to laugh - I’d love to be able to forward that comment on (the request being retro) back to school administration.
I won’t name names, but these are the people churning out graduates and apparently preparing them for further academic publishing (facepalm).
Thank you so much! You have pointed me to some creative solutions that I’ll play around with. See what works the best (it occured to me I can access the university’s media center to work with Word).
I will come back here sometime around submission deadline in early November and post - let you know what I ended up doing (for better or for worse). Might help someone else.
OR maybe you really ought to write to whoever is taking in these submissions and say “Do you really want me to literally type three space characters at the start of every non-initial paragraph? Your instructions seem to say this, but I wanted to double-check because, as document formatting goes, that seems, well, rather archaic.”
gr
P.S. It may also be that the instructions you are looking at have simply not been updated in a long time. Under pressure of time such things can just get reused for a long time without anyone thinking too closely about what they say.
