Hi,
I’ve been trying to edit using Scrivener and highlight colors and was hoping there was functionality to support my use case.
During the editing process, I’ll go through my manuscript and highlight the text, e.g. yellow highlight for narrative/description, blue highlight for dialogue, green for internal dialogue, red for action, etc.
I’d love to know if there is a way to show only one highlight color at a time so I can tackle just that type of edit without the rest of it becoming overwhelming. Ideally, I’d just see everything I’d highlighted in yellow (or whatever color), and everything else would be in its usual black text until it was time for me to tackle the next color. I know there is the search by formatting, but this doesn’t work the way I need it to.
Here is how I think you should approach this :
(Windows version screenshots)
Create such a style for each of your different highlight needs.
Use search by formatting to properly assign them to what you already highlighted.
Then, you’ll only have to redefine the styles so that only the one you want to see shows up with an highlight. (Whether it is true highlight [select part of / remove highlight / redefine style], or simply the highlight box from the style’s config panel [select part of / redefine style / uncheck highlight-box from style config].)
→ Although, of course, doing things like that will limit you to some extent if you planned on using styles to other avails. (In other words, you’ll be limited to the use of paragraph styles. No all formatting styles.)
. . . . . . . . .
If you define the styles using the highlight box, you’ll have to remove the real highlight afterwards.
If you define the styles using true direct-highlight, you won’t have to, but at the risk of constantly losing whatever true-highlight you’d later use; or seriously restrict you as far as using them goes. Where highlight-boxes and true highlights can, on the other hand, co-exist.
Hi Vincent,
This is very helpful, and almost what I need. A couple of questions though–once I’ve defined the character style, I can’t seem to change it except by redefining it from selection. Here’s what I get when I right click on the style:
No matter where you trigger the redefine style from, you first need to select a chunk of text of that style. (If you are using true/direct highlighting (I don’t know the real name or what else to call it - not the highlight box), first fix it / make it look the way you want it to, for that selection.)
There is no other way.
. . . . .
BTW, you should uncheck those two from the style’s config :
And, in my opinion, you should opt for the highlight box option. Less potential conflicts in the long run.
→ Both of which because, logically, you should want this “maneuver” to have the least possible impact on the editor’s content.
