I appreciate that Scrivener’s style model is that the default is “no style.” MS Word, of course, requires a style on all paragraphs. No style = the normal style. Is it possible in Scrivener to associate Scrivener’s “no style” with MS Word’s normal style for export? I ask because I have found that formatting in Scrivener carries over to Word (as is expected) but each Scrivener default-styled paragraph is treated by Word as a manually styled Word paragraph. Then there is no convenient way to edit the style formatting for all of those paragraphs. (The only alternative I can think of is to apply a style to every paragraph in the Scrivener project, which is workable but seems contrary to Scrivener’s design philosophy.)
Yeah, this is pretty easy to do in fact, we’ve done most of the hard work—you just need to connect the wires so to speak. Here is a simple checklist, using the “Manuscript (Times)” compile Format as an example (though most of the built-in Formats are the same):
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First, open up
File ▸ Compile...and scroll through the preview column. You’re looking for a layout that output body text, which you can then double-click on to edit. -
The Format Designer will open up to the Section Layout you chose. Click into the sample text in the “Formatting” tab, and use the style button in the toolbar to apply “Body” to the text.
You shouldn’t notice anything visible happen since this style is already set up to be identical to the default formatting.
Optionally: if there is no body style already in the Format you’re using, then use the
Format ▸ Copy Formattingmenu command, head over to the Styles pane, create a Paragraph+Character style named “Normal”, and then paste the formatting into the setup area. -
If you have any other Section Layouts that handle text, now is the time to go through the list and fix them.
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Next you may need to change the name of this style to “Normal”. Click on the Styles compile format pane, and double click on “Body” to rename it.
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Give that a quick test with the
Test...button in the lower left corner. -
If it looks good, optionally give the Format a better name and save it to “My Formats”, so you can use it from any project, going forward.
I cannot test that with Word specifically, but with LibreOffice it appears to work, judging by how other word processors work.
While you’re doing that, you may also consider going through the Layouts that produce headings, and bind those to “Heading 1”, “Heading 2” styles and so forth. That will give you a native outline in Word, from which you can produce a dynamic ToC in the text, and as well make use of its outline navigation features.
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Ioa - Thank you. I will give this a test with normal. I have already been using, to great benefit, the process of linking Scrivener styles to corresponding Word styles. It’s opened up a whole new and better world to me. -Tom