Currently I am using Scrivener to proofread a Project Gutenberg text, with a PDF as one file and the PG text version as the other. In order to let the PG folks know what lines need emendation, it helps if I can tell them the line number where a correction should be made.
So I turn on line numbering but alas, Scrivener refuses to count the blank lines that PG adds between paragraphs. This means the line numbers that Scrivener reports are wrong.
I’ve managed to overcome this by inserting (via find and replace) a character after every carriage return in the file.
But is there any way to make Scrivener count the lines properly, or is this another limitation of the OSX text handling?
Well, we have different opinions on what “properly” means. The counting that Scrivener does is content biased. If you need to know how many paragraphs or lines your document has, then the tool will give you that no matter how much spacing you use in between elements. Or to put it another way, should a scene break count as a paragraph? Most would say no.
That said there are certainly cases like yours where counting every single carriage return is important. This is usually more important in coding, so editors like TextMate, MacVim and BBEdit will do that kind of counting.
Anyway, I’d recommend putting something in the Wish List area, perhaps for an additional menu option like “Count Empty Lines”.
P.S. Love Gutenberg! That’s such an important project.