Hello community,
I have just updated to Scrivener 3 and for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to get rid of these hashtags (#) every time I compile my document. Where is the setting to turn these off?
(I think this is called the pound sign in British English)
Thanks very much for your help!
So when you encounter a compile format that is seeming to insert stuff in between sections, a good way to track down what is going on is to take a look at the Layouts preview column in the compile overview screen.[1] If you scroll through the layouts your project makes use of, you should find at least one tile showing this form of separator. For each that you find, hover the mouse over the tile for a moment and make note of the name of the layout being used (if you created your project using the standard Novel template, you might see “Section Text” for example).
For the sake of this example, I’ve changed the blank line separator to be different from the separator inserted between sections.
Now let us edit those layouts’ separator settings:
Load File ▸ Compile... and in the Format sidebar on the right, right-click to edit the format that is highlighted as being in use. If you are using a template format, you might want to duplicate it so as to keep an original copy handy.
Now in the format designer, click on the Separators pane and go through each of the layouts you noted before, checking the settings on the right for “Custom” separators that use the hash. You can replace that with your text string of choice, or simply set the separator to an empty line.
Also note there is a Blank line separator. As indicated in the illustration above, these are inserted into the text as well—but they will replace any empty lines you create yourself in the editor. Thus if you need a visible separator to conform to submission guidelines, you can still use an empty line if that is your visual preference while writing. Just leave that blank if you want them left alone.
Lastly, you could then at the top of the format designer give this a better name and switch it to be saved globally rather than specific to the project. That way, in the future you can simply select this format with other projects rather than having to do this again.
[1] And in general, that is a good way to discover whether a compile format is doing something to your text. Most forms of things that will be inserted automatically will be previewed in this column for you, giving you a pretty good picture of what the output will look like.
I can’t add to Amber’s comprehensive answer, but I can answer this…
In British English, that’s the hash sign. We do recognise that Americans (with their amusing and eccentric if wrong ways) call it the pound sign, but we forgive them. 
A pound sign is £.
It’s an octothorp, of course!
I have the same problem, and I’m not having any luck solving it by means of the advice above. I have applied no layouts whatsoever to any sections, which means that I can’t choose a layout and modify it. I am, however, getting a pound sign before every section (or maybe after). Help! Thanks!
So you have the yellow box message at the top of the preview column in compile overview that is warning you that no layout assignments have been made in the project?
Well, I would try simply clicking on the “Default” format in the sidebar and compiling with that (yellow box or no), as it has no layouts that insert hashmarks.
That’s it exactly. I’ll try your recommendation. Thanks so much.
Hello! I have read the post here carefully and have tried, and have googled endlessly, but cannot sort out how to compile my mss WITHOUT the hashtag. I just want a plain blank space. If anyone can help me, I’d be so grateful!
Since just about every detail of what to do has been covered above, it would help us to know where you get stuck in the process.
One thing worth noting it is that it is easier to edit specific layouts now, by just double-clicking on the preview tile in the main compile overview area. From there you can select the Separators pane, referred to and illustrated above.
Hi Amber, When I am in the compile overview screen, and hover the mouse over the hashtag, nothing shows up. I can’t find a box that shows ‘separators’.
Thank you for trying to help!
Muốn bỏ thẻ hashtag ra khảo trình biên dịch phải làm thế nào?
In File > Compile, when you have your chosen compile format chosen, in the center column of the pane, one of the layout previews there should be actually displaying the hash sign separator as part of its preview.* That is the item you want to double click on so as to edit its Separators settings. Is there no such preview item?
gr
p.s. (Amber’s instructions, while thorough as always, are perhaps a bit more elliptical than he realizes, since the image does not illustrate any of what his opening paragraph is telling you to do!)
gr,
Wahoo! Thank you. I did it. I had to create a copy of the layout first. Then the double-clicking on the # took me to the right place. Very much appreciate the help.
The compile preview pane does not use text from my manuscript, it’s just fake filler text. So there is no way to see what compile format is going to throw the random hashtags. It is exceedingly frustrating.
They aren’t “random.” They are generated, depending on your settings, by either a break between documents or by extra space (such as a double carriage return) within documents. If you look at your output text to see where the hashtags fall, you can determine which of these applies.
Section 24.4 in the (Mac) Scrivener manual discusses separators in detail.
Katherine
It’s a crosshatch:##
You mean the octothorpe?
Hi,
I am compiliing my manuscript using the novel template. Before I got a clean manuscript. After I copied the text back chapter by chapter from an updated version of the manuscript on microsoft word, I’m now getting a hash (#) at the end of each paragraph.
e.g.
paragraph here.
'#
next paragraph here.
I can’t see what I’m doing wrong, could you please help? Thanks.
See:
