"Novel Format" instruction problem?

Scrivener Scrivener for Windows
1

I’m not sure if this is user error or an inconsistency with the instructions, but when you start a project and select the novel format, at the top of your binder is a little info sheet that explains about the format you’ve selected. It mentions that there are built-in template sheets for characters and settings. It explains that you can either use them as-is, or customize them. The instructions say not to put specific info into the sheets in the “template sheets” folder, since that is the “template,” but to create new copies under the character or settings folder.

Quoted from the instructions:

“to create a new character sheet, click on the Characters folder (or wherever you want to create your new character sheet) and from the Project menu, select New From Template > Character Sketch. This creates a new character sketch document for you to edit and fill in with your character details. You can create setting sketch sheets in the same way.”

When I attempt to follow these instructions, I see that the project menu doesn’t contain “New From Template.” The only choices are “New Text” (a blank doc), “New Folder,” “Project Stats,” “Text Stats” and “Project Targets.”

I understand that I can simply cut and paste the text from the character template sheet into a blank doc under Characters, but that’s not how the instructions say to do it. If the instructions are incorrect, I just wanted to point it out so that they can be fixed. If I’m doing it wrong, then hopefully someone can tell me what I need to do!

2

It’s a problem with the template. The templates were all just ported from the Mac, so some of them use features (such as document templates in your example) that aren’t available yet in Windows. At some point the team will give the templates a look over to brush them up for Windows Scrivener, but so far Lee’s been focusing on coding and killing bugs. :wink: So unfortunately there’s still some confusion with the templates.

The best way to do work with document templates–either ones that were set up in a project template or if you want to make your own–is to make a folder in your binder and call it “Templates” and then create your templates under that. Instead of copy/pasting the contents, you can use the Duplicate command on the document in the binder and then move that copy to wherever you want it and fill it out.