Sometimes when I hit return I get an indent of four characters. Other times I get an indent of eight. When I get the four-character indent I can then get the eight-character indent by hitting tab. But when it gives me the eight-character indent, hitting the backspace doesn’t give me the four-character indent but simply takes me to the left margin.
I want the formatting to be consistent throughout this document, but going through 120k of text to do this manually seems daunting. Is there a ‘global’ way of making it consistent? I’d prefer the smaller indent if I have a choice, but all I really care about right now is consistency.
The way to approach a problem like this is to realize that it isn’t random. If Scrivener is giving you an extra indent, it’s because you (perhaps accidentally) told it to.
So. Are you using block quotes, nested lists, or any other formatting that would require a double indent? In the formatting toolbar, there is a little button in the top left that shows which formatting preset you are using. Try changing it to see what happens to the ruler.
(Commands to hide/show both the ruler and the formatting bar are in the Format menu.)
What about templates? Do you have document templates setup with different ruler settings, for instance?
It’s also possible that part of the document just has the wrong ruler setting, which can happen if you create some text, then change the ruler. Once you have the ruler set the way you want, the Format -> Text submenu has commands to copy and paste the ruler; pasting the ruler will apply the new ruler to whatever text is selected at the time.