I tried this, inserting the <$BLANK_PAGE> placeholder in the “Section prefix:” field…
But instead of a blank page being inserted, the string “<$BLANK_PAGE>” is inserted as text before my chapter titles…
What is the best way to get chapters to start on a recto page with facing verso page blank?
And now, even though I have set section to always be printed on recto page…
Sections are appearing on verso pages…
And without the requested (5 blank lines) top of page padding.
What is going on?
Please open a support ticket here.
When you do, please reference this thread and include a ZIP copy of the project.
That way, the person who picks up your ticket can test how the project’s compile settings are set up and determine what’s occurring.
That will be the fastest way for one of the L&L support team to review the issues you’re having and help you find a solution.
OK, but right here, in this stream, so others can learn…
WHAT IS THE L&L RECOMMENDED WAY TO SET UP A COMPILE SUCH THAT CHAPTERS ALL START ON RECTO PAGES WITH A BLANK FACING VERSO PAGE BEFORE?
Each of my chapters are assigned a section layout which already has a page break and I have selected the option to always print these sections on recto pages. If I put a Page Break placeholder in the prefix of the title, or the section, all heal breaks loose. If I insert a Page Break from the edit menu in the same prefix field(s), behavior gets even more unpredictable. All of these seem like hacks. Do I have to manually place a page break placeholder at the end of all of my chapters in the editor? If so, won’t many other compile settings be affected?
Page breaks should be handled by the section types and example text that is assigned to each section type.
That is:
If I have a Chapter section type set up in a project and assign it example text that includes a page break like this:
That will have Scrivener start each new chapter’s heading–which is coming from those folders in my project’s binder–on a new page.
Whether those page breaks will push the text to the recto page is handled by the settings within each compile format. The screenshot you shared above shows which settings control that.
If that combination is not working, then tech support needs to see the project and any customized compile settings to review the situation.
You are asking the impossible. Pages only have two sides.
You can set all new chapters to begin on a recto page, but if the previous chapter ends on a verso page, you will not get a blank page. You can either:
I am asking the impossible? What physics makes this impossible? Are you saying that Scrivener doesn’t have this functionality, that it can’t make sure that there is always a blank verso page preceding recto pages that are the starts of chapters? Are you an L&L representative?
This is a responce to just part of my question. It seems reasonable that one would want to start a chapter with a section type that has a blank page preceding and is set to always be placed on a recto page (as I have set my project to do). The other part of my question has to do with getting Scrivener to compile such that there is also always a blank page on the facing verso page of each of these chapter starts. Is there a setting for this?
No, there isn’t. If the text ends anywhere on the verso page, then the next chapter will start on the recto page with no blank pages between them.
If the text of the previous chapter ends on a recto page, then you’ll get that blank verso page before the next chapter.
If your output file must always have a blank page before a chapter starts, you’ll need to compile and do any final editing in a tool designed for page-layout tasks like Affinity Publisher or Adobe InDesign.
Scrivener’s design focuses it on the early stages of researching, writing, and editing a manuscript. It’s not designed to be a full-featured page layout program.
So, you are saying that “no there isn’t” a way to set up a Scrivener compile such that all chapters start on recto pages (with a blank verso page preceding)? I should not think that this is the stuff of “a full-featured page layout program”. There seem to be an almost endless number of settings available here in Scrivener’s compile functionality. In fact, I got Scrivener to compile with chapter starts on recto pages (with facing blank verso page) to work (for a few compiles) by inserting a page break in the section prefix settings field… but only for a few compiles. Why would it work at first but later not? Appears that Scrivener gets confused by all of the myriad places where the user can alter page break settings?
Note: The project in question is a test project that was made from the non-fiction template, contains no front or back matter, nothing in fact but 5 text documents in the manuscript folder. There is no meta-data, no links, no formatting, nothing in the text but alphanumeric characters, space characters, and return characters between paragraphs. All text is set to No Style. All documents are at the same binder hierarchy level. All are set to the same section type. Section type is set to always print on recto page and to add the title with 5 lines. It’s that simple.
If this is not something the current version of Scrivener can do, I suggest it be included in the next version of Scrivener.
Thank you for answering.
The following are my compile settings:
And the resulting compile with chapter starting on verso (not recto page as I have requested, and with title not starting after 5 lines of blank text as requested)…
