Hi,
I’m trying to find the scrivener file where the styles are stored.
Is it the preferences file ? I’m not sure.
It appears to be separated from the project file, since from one mac to another, I wouldn’t restore my styles list …
Hi,
Styles are actually global and not stored by Scrivener at all - they are part of the OS X text system, which is why you can see the same styles in TextEdit, Scrivener and any other program that uses the same system.
Another user had the same problem - needing to transfer styles between machines - and had to dig around on the net and on his machine to find a solution. I’m sure he won’t mind me posting his solution for you to use - this was on Tiger, but I’m sure it will be the same on Leopard:
Hope that helps.
All the best,
Keith
Thank’s a lot for this précise, complete and supportive answer.
I wonder why OSX wouldn’t simply store textedit & Co styles in a .plist preferences file …
Anyway, thank’s again !
In my styles list I have both “Standard” and “Default”.
When I got it right programs with a German UI (German is my first OS language) use “Standard” for new texts and programs with an English UI use “Default”.
In German programs I can alter the style and save it as “Standard” but it will not be recognized. The next new text will have, for example, the same 1.0x0.0/0.0 line and paragraph spacing as always.
The same happens when I try to change the “Default” style in an English program, which means that in either case you can’t change the default style, whatever it is called.
On the other hand, “Standard” is for English programs just any name for a custom-made style and so it can be saved properly, and vice versa “Default” in German programs.
This looks like a work-around – alter and save the style in a program with an UI in a different language and voilà ! But it doesn’t work. “Standard” and “Default” are not recognized in the programs in which they are the default style. The defaults are not changed this way either.
But they are recognized in the programs in which they are NOT the default style. Like, in TextEdit (German UI) you can save an altered style as “Standard” but this will have no effect on the next new TextEdit file. It will have an effect on a text in Together (English UI) if you choose the style “Standard”. And, again, vice versa.
And because of the default style is very important if you jump from application to application and copy and paste a lot this is quite confusing and annoying.
In Journler (German UI) trying to change the default “Standard” style via the rouler doesn’t have any effect either but after checking out all menues I found that there is a menue point for setting the standard style. Which doesn’t affect the OS wide settings.
Scrivener with it’s rich and easily to be found preferences of course doesn’t have any problem with any of these default settings!
For anyone coming up with a simple solution for changing the default style OS wide and for ALL languages I’m offering 5000 blessings (start price).
Okay, I checked out the above mentioned .GlobalPreferences.plist with TextWrangler (opens hidden files!).
In this file I found “NSFavoriteStyles” starting the list of all styles. And they look like this:
The actual data obviously is not human-readable.
But you can define your own style and save it in any program using the OS styles and then relocate it in this list – it’s name is readable – and copy and paste it’s data to “Default” or “Standard”.
This is the theory. I will now leave for breakfast and try it out later or at the weekend. Stay tuned or be brave yourself!
To no surprise nothing happened.
No meltdown of the kernel – phew! –, but no change in the default styles either.
It worked as if I had changed “Standard” and “Default” from within a program that uses them. In a new text they get overwritten by the real default style which is kept somewhere else, not in NSFavoriteStyles.
Which leads me to the question: Can you English guys who probably use programs with English UIs only simply overwrite the default style by saving your altered settings as “Default”?