Lose formatting when copying from Word to Scrivener

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
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Any advice on why I lose italics and bold formatting when I copy and paste from Word to Scrivener?

I’ve seen advice on here about how to fix it when copying from Scrivener to Word, but not for this.

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No advice yet, but questions:

  • Does the font family you use in Scrivener actually have italics?
  • Is the font you use in Word available for all apps on the Mac or Word exclusive?
  • How do you copy and paste? Do you use the (context) menu or a shortcut? The latter might be linked to paste as plain text.
  • Have you tried to import the Word document you were copying from by Import and Split? If so, where the italics intact?
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thanks for your reply. Some answers below in bold

Does the font family you use in Scrivener actually have italics? - I’m not sure what “font family” means? I just use the “no style” format, and select italics in there
Is the font you use in Word available for all apps on the Mac or Word exclusive?
I compile from Scrivener and it creates a Word doc with Times New Roman font
How do you copy and paste? Do you use the (context) menu or a shortcut? The latter might be linked to paste as plain text.
I usually use Cntl C and Cntl V but also tried the drop-down menu with Paste and then Paste Match Style and neither worked.
Have you tried to import the Word document you were copying from by Import and Split? If so, where the italics intact?
No haven’t tried this, but I’m trying to import individual scenes, so that might make it more complicated.

thanks for your interest.

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Access the Interactive Tutorial from the Help menu. It has a topic Importing Files, under Going Further → Getting Your Work Out. It’s a walkthrough on Import and Split, with an easy to understand guide on importing individual scenes in one go.
Also, since you’re on Mac, you surely meant Cmd+C and Cmd+V.

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It’s an older thread, with some information that is obsolete now toward the bottom of it, but another thing to check is whether the Word document has tracked changes in it. I.e. you can make something italic as a revision, and Word will show it along with all the other current revisions, but it isn’t actually saved into the core text that everything else will be using (even copy and paste, as demonstrated in that thread, which to my mind seems insane to not copy what the user can see, but Microsoft will Microsoft).

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I understand, but I wasn’t suggesting to generally use Import and Split. But for testing purposes it could help to pinpoint where the italics get lost. When Import and Split makes them disappear too then Copy & Paste does not cause the trouble.

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You were right! I used the menu to copy and paste instead of the keyboard shortcut and it worked. Edit / Copy, then Edit / Paste. Then I chose No Style in the styles panel menu and it still retained italics in the right places. Thanks so much!

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