Override text and notes formatting is ignored for certain files.
My compile recipe is simple: Chapter Heading and Section Text.
Both have ‘Override text and notes formatting’ checked. All Chapters are in Folders; All text are in Files; Structure based is chosen for everything, which shows Chapters as chapter Heading and Files as Scene.
Assign Section Layout shows both assignments properly.
One file works, the rest pass through the formatting I use in the editor. This is not a function of text/chapter order: I’ve tested that.
HELP!
One Section Text works properly, all the rest are ignored.
Are you using a “body” style in the Editor? Assigned Styles will not be affected by the Section Layout formatting. (Which is one of the reasons why we don’t recommend using a style for “normal” text.)
Double-check that this option is enabled for both Chapter Headings and Section Text in your compile settings and ensure that there are no conflicting styles or settings in the individual files or folders
Got it. Resetting every word in all the files clears my problem.
Second Question: is there a way to change the ‘style’ of All of the text or do I have to do it one by one? [not that that is terrible because I’m doing a novel rewrite anyway…]
Interesting that there were styles everywhere! I am relieved that is the answer though; I gave this some thought last night and could think of nothing at all that would work the way you described it, especially with everything obviously double-checked and set up right.
As for more efficient ways to do this, I do hope you haven’t already finished, because there are several shortcuts that each have their pros and cons. The methods are listed in the user manual PDF, under §17.3.5, Removing Styles from Text. The yellow tip box is the most efficient, but the most scorched earth way of removing styles.
Another tip, and one I should probably put in the manual, is to note the selection commands in Edit ▸ Select. The “Select Similar Formatting” and “Select Style Range” can both be quite useful for rapid clean-up, conversion to styling and so on.
Not mentioned in the manual specifically is also the method of simply deleting the unwanted style from the project, which has the secondary effect of reverting all the text that was using it to “No Style” (although in this case, leaving its formatting intact). This is typically what I recommend when people go down the “Body” paragraph style route and then find that complicates everything. In that case the style itself is also useless, so we might as well fix all of the problems at once with one simple menu command.
I’m running into a strange issue where Compile completely ignores formatting overrides, whether I’m using built-in formats or a custom format that previously worked correctly. Scrivener always outputs whatever formatting is in the Binder documents instead.
Setup:
Scrivener for Windows v. 3.1.6.0
All my documents use the “Scene” section type.
In Assign Section Types to Section Layouts, I’ve mapped Scene → Section Text (so it’s not set to “As-Is”).
The problem:
No matter what I do, the compiled output (DOCX, RTF, PDF) always uses the original Binder formatting—font, size, line spacing, everything. It completely ignores compile formatting.
This happens when using:
my custom compile format (which used to apply correctly), and
built-in formats like Manuscript (Times).
Even with Manuscript (Times), mapped as Scene → Section Text, I still get whatever formatting happens to be in the Binder instead of TNR 12-pt double-spaced. It’s like Scrivener has stopped applying compile overrides altogether.
Has anyone seen this before? Is there a global setting or hidden switch that prevents Scrivener from overriding document-level formatting? This used to work fine, and now nothing changes the output.
I would first to check other threads that discuss issues like this, to make sure you aren’t running into a common usage issue. For example, the conversation above, which this has been merged into.
Note that although they thought they were not using styles, if you read down further in the thread you will find they were, along with tips on how to clean things up.
It happens with the default compile setting as well. If I use “Manuscript (Times)” it is still formatted as in the Binder Text. I looked and it does not have a style assigned to it. It is set to “No Style, Times New Roman 12 pt 2.0x spacing.” It does not apply this to the compiles. “Override text and notes formatting” is checked.
Odd, because these are built in, not modified by me, so they should work properly. It does not.
To clarify, you would be looking for styled text in the editor, not in the compile settings. Styles in the editor are strong edicts on what you want the text to look like, designed to on purpose override compiler formatting. Otherwise it would be very difficult to do some things, like block quotes with slightly smaller text, or epigraphs with a special font.
I am sorry, but I don’t understand. I am not especially technically oriented, and this app is a bit complicated at times. Does this mean I need to remove the formatting in the text in binders?
It’s not possible to fully remove formatting in the text itself, it’s always going to be something. But what you don’t want is to click into any ordinary paragraph, check the Format Bar above the editor, and see something other than “No Style” printed there. If you don’t see a Format Bar, or that control at all, then you could open the style panel, with the Format ▸ Style ▸ Styles Panel menu command. This will highlight whatever style is currently in use at the cursor point.
Thank you. That fixed it. It was a rather unintuitive fix, IMO. But it seems to work. However, while the PDF has the correct font, the DOCX is not putting the correct font in. So, another problem.
Even using a fork isn’t intuitive. I don’t think styles, as a concept, ever could be. Sometimes it is better to design for flexibility and power, if you’re already so far in the weeds of technical convention and esoterica that you’ll never make it like picking up a pair of chopsticks anyway.
At any rate, glad to hear it is working better now. For DOCX, try RTF to eliminate conversion weirdness, DOCX is not Scrivener’s native format.
