I imported an RTF doc into Scrivener. It is a series of paragraphs that are separated by empty lines.
Some of the paragraphs do not behave like the others. If I put my cursor in the middle of the paragraph and them press the up arrow, I jump to the beginning of the paragraph, not the next line up. It’s like they are one long line (there are multiple sentences). It makes it difficult to edit because the arrow keys behave very differently.
I’m not sure how I can convert these to “normal” text - they seem like they have some kind of special formatting applied to them but I can’t figure out what might cause this behavior.
Do you have a sample RTF file you could send to support AT literatureandlatte DOT com? I’ve not seen this before and am unsure of how to replicate the problem. If the contents are private, you could use search and replace to mangle it up by swapping characters around—that shouldn’t disturb the origin of the strange behaviour, but do test after you mangle it to make sure the paragraphs still do not react the way they should.
Did you create the original RTF? I would immediately suspect that there might be something like a tab at the end of the line before the paragraph break, and that the only tab stop is before the last visible character.
Tabs in the absence of suitable tab stops do that.
Thanks for the reply. I just opened Scriv and the problem doesn’t exist now. That was my experience yesterday as well - it wasn’t consistent. I was hoping it was some kind of formatting mode I’d accidentally enabled or something.
I will see if I can find a way to consistently recreate it.
It sounds like a bug. I’m actually not even aware of a way to intentionally do what you are describing. The Ctrl-Up shortcut does jump paragraphs, but it jumps to the previous paragraph’s start of line; the Home key ignores paragraphs entirely and just considers the wrapped line to be a “line” for purposes of where it goes. I can’t think of a way to jump to the beginning of the paragraph from within it, without using the mouse or a combination of keys (like Ctrl-Up Ctrl-Down).
For additional clarification, you’re talking about the cursor behaving erratically among paragraphs in one single document, yes? There’s a bug where using the undo command (and I think something else, I remember seeing it but need to check what it was) causes the cursor behavior to switch, so that instead of moving up line by line it instead moves paragraph to paragraph. But it will do this, as far as I know, for the entire document, not just for specific paragraphs. Switching to another document in the editor and then returning will make it go back to the normal behavior.
I’ve seen that one as well, actually while trying to reproduce this one It doesn’t quite match the description though—at least what I saw—because the cursor would jump to the same relative position within the next or prior paragraph. So if you were in the middle of paragraph 2, the cursor would jump to paragraph 1, somewhere in the middle of it, rather than the start of the line like Ctrl does.
Who knows though, it’s a bug. They aren’t known for following the rules.
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I think it may be this bug you refer to. My apologies for the misdirection - I’ve only been using Scrivener for a few days. As you state, when I switch to another document and then back, the problem goes away.
I’d apparently erroneously assumed it was an RTF or formatting-mode issue because it cropped up first when working with an RTF-imported doc.
If you know what the other cause is (besides undo), please post and I’ll see if I can correlate to make sure it’s a result of one of those two operations.
Hm, this is the report I was thinking of, but if it is linked also to cut and paste, I can’t reproduce it. In all of my thirty seconds of trying. But the OP there wasn’t sure either.
It doesn’t quite match the description though—at least what I saw—because the cursor would jump to the same relative position within the next or prior paragraph. So if you were in the middle of paragraph 2, the cursor would jump to paragraph 1, somewhere in the middle of it, rather than the start of the line like Ctrl does.
But the OP there wasn’t sure either.