Trying to modify a custom style and it’s not working!
Ver scrivener 3.1.5.1, win 11
Pretty sure there USED to be a Modify Style button (and all the tutorials I’m seeing say there is/was, but now I can only REDEFINE styles based on previous text. What the?
Here’s what I’m trying to do:
My “Verse” Style needs to have a space above and especially BELOW the snippet of song. (The book title, which I’m working as editor/compiler for my Mom is titled “Singing Out of Tune,” so as you might guess that there’s more than a bit of singing throughout the manuscript.
Right now, I’m trying to “redefine” the style by capturing an empty line above and below it. And that’s just not working. I’m not seeing the empty lines where they should be. I am pretty sure that in the past I was able to define space above/below a style, but now I can’t figure out how.
In a text with that Style, adjust the space above and below the Paragraph with Format > Paragraph > Line and Paragraph Spacing (not new lines). Then, Redefine the Style.
I wonder if maybe you are remembering things from another program you used in the past? Scrivener has never had a “modify” button (but word processors tend to!), and it has never had the ability to format a sequence of styled paragraphs as a unit (but most word processors do!).
You can, as indicated in the previous post, implement spacing around each paragraph/line, but again, not in a way where that sequence of lines is considered one unit.
Whatever the case, I would save this kind of formatting for later, after compiling. The important part in Scrivener is to get the text marked for its purpose, with a style. If it does all the formatting you need as well, great, but if it doesn’t the text is marked and this formatting can be universally applied in a tool that does.
I write about how this can be done efficiently, using LibreOffice as an example. I believe Word also has ways of making this efficient—and by that I mean you somehow take what you compile and apply a template, or insert the compiled text into a template, and have it instantly formatted correctly. It can a 30-second procedure you do after compiling, ideally.