I have several handwritten letters that I’ve scanned and can insert into my Scrivener document (Windows version). I want to also include a transcription of each letter that will be easier to read. And I’d like the transcription to look a little different to set it apart from the regular text of the main story. Is this possible with Scrivener, or should I be looking at something different? A publishing software? Thank you.
How you get your transcription is another matter, at worst by typing it out yourself, but once you have your transcription entered in Scrivener, it’s fundamentally easy to set it up with different attributes, though it will differ depending on whether you’re using v. 1.9.x or v. 3 (Beta currently):
In 1.9 you need to set up a paragraph with the font, size, variant, colour, margins etc. that you want, select it, then create a preset and make sure it has “Preserve Formatting” set. Then you need to apply that to each transcription in turn. If you decide to change any of the attributes, you’ll have to go back and apply the changed preset to each transcription individually. I’m not on Windows and it’s several years since I used the equivalent Mac version, so I can’t remember the details of where to find the menu to set up the presets.
V. 3 has a style system. So basically, you set up a transcription paragraph the way you want it, then Format > Style > New Style from Selection. Because it is a style, if you want to change it in any way, you go into one of your transcriptions, select the paragraph, make the change(s), then Format > Style > Redefine Style from Selection. When you OK it, all your transcriptions should be modified automatically to match the change(s).
That said, I’m on Mac, have never tried doing that on Windows and so don’t know if it will do it right through the draft as it does in the Mac version, or only in the document(s) currently being edited.
Hope that helps.
Mark
Thank you Mark for your suggestions, and please excuse my very late reply.
Creating a Preset will be very helpful and I probably wouldn’t have used that feature without your suggestion. Also the tip on “preserve formatting” will save me a lot of pulling my hair out trying to figure that one out.