Sorry for eventually asking something that might have been answered already. I was reading a lot of question and also looking YouTube videos without getting the information I have been looking for.
I’m new to Scrivener still in trial mode to figure out wether I will be able to work with it.
Basically what I want: I have chapters, sections and subsections and would like to have the great functionality to split those into several chunks and Scrivener combine all of them at the end into one document. I understood that the compilation does that.
However I’m confused by the binder having folders and text nodes which can both be hierarchically adjusted and both can have section type being at leastc4 different types. I tried a lot different scenarios but always with one of following results:
Name of folder/section title is not shown in final document
Name of folder/section title is shown but starting with a new page in final document
For a chapter it’s ok when it starts on a new page but a section that does fill a quarter of page it’s wired when the next section starts on next page.
I wasn’t able to find the correct documentation telling me how to handle it correct. As another approach I was thinking that I might have to write the titles into the document myself but then wonder that the levels offered are just 1 and 2. In most word processing you have a lot of more levels. I have seen that I could create my own but - honestly - I assumed for given price that I don’t have to setup all on my own just to be able to write structured text.
That’s why I assume that I simply didn’t understood the principles of Scrivener.
Could you please give me a few hints how to use this correctly.
If you haven’t already, I’d recommend taking a look at our Interactive Tutorial, available from the Help menu. It has a good hands-on introduction to the Compile command.
Choose a Section Layout that includes the title. See the preview tiles in the center pane of the main Compile screen to accomplish this.
Again, look at the preview tiles and choose one that doesn’t include a page break. Probably you will want to use a different layout for subdocuments than for the Chapters.
You can create as many levels as you need. In the Project → Project Settings → Section Types pane, choose the Default Types by Structure tab. Click the plus sign in the lower left to add levels. See Section C.2 in the manual for a detailed discussion of this pane and how it interacts with the Compile command.
(Rereading this, it’s not clear what you want to create levels of. Are you looking at the Styles pane? You can create more of those, too. Format text the way you want, select it, and use the Format → Style → New Style from Selection command. Please read Chapter 17 in the manual first, though, as Scrivener styles are a little different from others you might be familiar with.)
The Layout ‘Standard’ includes the titles but with page break and seems the only one which does show the things as intended for my purpose. I were copying the layout into an own and trying 1 hour to change the settings to get the page break away for sections. I found one location where to change the break but with the effect that also the page break for chapters has gone. I was not able to make it for sections only.
There seems also an translation issue in german: all those separator settings have separator option appearing two times with same name (German: ‘Trenner vor Abschnitten’) → I was switching into English and there both options are different: ‘Separator before sections’ and ‘Separator between sections’.
Just to mention: I hoped not to be forced to make my own layout right at the beginning. But eventually I misunderstood and the own layout and the whole understanding of it is the way to use Scrivener at all?
Also I’m confused (sorry) … why can I change the section type in the binder at each node but - it seems - as in the compiler those settings are not recognized?
There may be a language issue, but I’m afraid I don’t quite understand your questions.
You shouldn’t need to create your own layouts from the beginning.
The Compiler works only with Section Layouts, not Section Types. Section Types define what something is: a chapter, a section, an epigraph. Section Layouts define how things look: title? page break? font? and so on. The center pane of the main Compile screen is what ties the two together. Figure 23.3 in the manual (and the accompanying text) shows how this works.