I’m using the trial version, with hopes of purchase as I like the organizational structure and ability to split screen to refer to interviews/notes etc. while writing. But for the non-fiction projects I work on as a journalist I often need to copy/paste my research from other documents and the web into a text file. I’ve set a default font, but the stuff I copy/paste in retains whatever original font it was written in. By the time I’ve finished pulling together one text file, I’ve got 15 different fonts and sizes and bold/not bold. It’s very hard to read and too slow to have to keep changing it manually.
Am I missing something? Is there a way to set the default so anything I copy/paste in from other documents, web sources etc, all convert to that same font? Sort of a ‘plain text’ option?
Hello Code,
If it helps, whenever I import or paste into Scrivener I use the top menu and go to Documents/Convert/Formatting to default text style.
This will change your imported text to whatever default you have set. There are options to customise.
The easiest way to do this on they fly is to use Ctrl+Shift+V instead of Ctrl+V. This will automatically paste in text while keeping the document’s formatting.
The one thing to note with using Paste and Match Style (Ctrl+Shift+V) is that since it pastes as plain text, you will lose character formatting like italics and bold. If it’s important to retain these, you’re better doing a standard paste and then converting after the fact via Documents > Convert > Formatting to Default Text Style, which retains these (and lets you make other formatting adjustments if necessary).
The great problem for me with “Convert > Formatting to Default Text Style” is that it destroys hyperlinks. And not in an obvious way: the formatting that signals a link is retained, but the link is cleared.
What does work well is the Format Bar. Ctrl-A to Select All, and the Format Bar to change typeface and size. But the Format Bar is not reachable by keystrokes, only by mouse. Or at least I have not found the secret society handshakes. Were the Bar reachable by keystrokes, we could devise an AutoHotkey script to achieve common formatting, with links and effects retained.
The ersatz version on F4, “Format > Font > Show Fonts”, is reachable by keyboard, of course. It seems to retain links, but it overwrites font styling (bold, italic) and effects (strikeout, underline).
Making all Scrivener behaviors reachable by keystrokes wherever practicable would be bestest.
