OK, I’m obviously missing something basic here. I don’t see how to adjust the font and font size of chapter titles in Scrivener 3.
In the attached image, you will see that my test manuscript contains three chapters: Eat, Drink and Be Merry. Each folder is a chapter, and each folder is assigned to section type “chapter”.
In File > Compile (for ePub), I want to adjust the font and font size for the chapter titles. But the message in yellow indicates I must use a style setting. I know what styles are, but in this case I’m not sure how to use them. The words “Eat”, “Drink” and “Be Merry” appear nowhere in my manuscript. The Compile function pulls the chapter titles directly from the folder names. So I’m not sure how to attach a style to something that does not exist in the manuscript.
In Scrivener 2, it was possible to adjust title sizes and fonts in File > Compile. So maybe that functionality has moved somewhere else, and I’m just not seeing it?
For a start, if you want to use the Scrivener 2 way of doing things, you can choose to export to ePub 2 instead of ePub 3 (Scrivener 2 exported to ePub 3). ePub 3 provides much more nicely formatted ebooks, though. the way you do it is this:
Edit the Compile format, and select the “Styles” pane.
Add a paragraph+character style, e.g. “Chapter Heading”.
Format the style as you wish.
In “Section Layouts”, apply the style to the chapter heading.
This is a little different to how other export formats work, but it allows Scrivener to produce much cleaner and better HTML for the ebook. It also gives users with knowledge of CSS the ability to tweak the CSS if they want.
It might be a good idea to have a look at how the “Ebook” format that comes with Scrivener does things - that provides some very nice defaults that can be used with ebooks out of the box. Is there any reason you’re building a format from scratch rather than using the one provided?
Thanks Keith. That makes sense now. I didn’t realise you could create a style, not use it the manuscript, but still use it in Compile.
Right now I’m building a number of small Scrivener test manuscripts, just to understand how and where Scrivener 3 works differently from Scrivener 2. Most of the changes in the new work flow look good!
You asked why I set up my own custom format for ePub Compile. Not sure my answer is a sound one, but here goes. When I set up my own format, I can double-click on the format name and get to the “options” screen (below), where I can make some changes on footnote handling. When I double-click on the standard, Scrivener-supplied E-book format, nothing happens, I can’t get to the options screen to adjust footnote handling.
Select the default EBook format, then click the + at the bottom left of the compile, “Duplicate…” to create your own compile format based on the default selected (or use right-click context menu)
KB: would a double-click on a default format doing this for the user be a useful tweak?
I mean, double-click on a built in compile format simply duplicates it ready to edit (a double-click on a project format edits it, so it is the “same” procedure), I don’t mean anything to do with styles…
I haven’t been able to format chapter titles using the available information, including this thread. I go to the Styles panel from the Format menu after going into Compile mode. I can’t see how to:
Add a paragraph+character style, e.g. “Chapter Heading”.
I see “Paragraph Styles” and “Character Styles”. not: paragraph+character
I also still don’t understand why the Section Layouts are there really, and what is appearing on the scrolling list. There are only minute difference between them, and I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do. The yellow notice box says:
Please click on “Assign Section Layouts” below to set up layouts.
I’m still finding this incomprehensible after reading and experimenting for a long time now.
I am not interested in how Scrivener 2 worked, I’m at the beginning with Scrivener 3 and am wondering why something as simple as this should be so difficult.
