If I export a project using MMD and then re-import it, I don’t get the same document. Meta-data (and I’m not sure what else) ends up in my text. And, of course, any formatting from the original document was lost on conversion to MMD.
It makes me wonder about the details of MMD import. What elements can I use in a Scrivener document such that compiling to MMD and importing back in (to a blank Scrivener project, I guess is the only way to do it), and end up with the same thing I started with?
This import feature isn’t designed to operate as a round-trip mechanism for edits. If you want that, try using the File/Sync/with External Folder command using the plain-text format. The MMD importer is for importing MultiMarkdown documents, all of them, and a very important part of them includes their meta-data. If left the way it imports, Scrivener will use that Meta-Data document in future compiling, so long as it is at the very top of the Draft.
Naturally. MultiMarkdown is a plain-text format. No formatting is going to survive export. I’m not sure what you were expecting any different here.
In that case, use nothing based on formatting. Do everything using the MMD codes for doing them, in plain-text. No footnotes, no annotations, no images. Use the Meta-Data file at the top of the Draft instead of the compile meta-data pane, and for headers, make sure no prefix/suffix stuff is being added.
You wouldn’t need to use a new blank project though. You can import these things into any old project.