I came to Scrivener after tearing my hair out formatting my first novel Living in the O in Word for CreateSpace. The end result was, however, quite good. My second novel is completed in the excellent Scrivener, but there is a problem I’m not sure how to solve.
For the first book in Word my Document settings were Top: 0.75; Bottom: 0.75; Inside: 0.75; Outside: 0.5; Gutter: 0.35.
As there is no “Gutter” in Scrivener’s Compile Page Margins, I’m at a loss. The first proof of my second book, The Moon Food Cafe, sent to me by CreateSpace, had an insufficient gutter on the left verso pages. The Scrivener settings were the same as Word for Top, Bottom, Inside (Left, I assume). For that first proof I set the Right margin at 0.5 (as recommended by Ed Ditto (How to format your book for Kindle, Nook, etc), but the gutter was too small. For the second proof I changed Right margin to .75, so that all Scrivener settings were then .75. Still too small a gutter on the left verso page. As I’m paying nearly $30 a proof, I’m a tad timid to go further without some advice. For some reason, CreateSpace’s Interior Viewer is not working for me. They offer no reason.
Should I now make the Right margin the sum of Word’s Outside margin of 0.5 and their Gutter of 0.35, making a total Right margin of .85? Will this give me the same gutter as my first book done in Word?
Yes, definitely, I would try this, and make sure that you have “Use facing pages” ticked in the “Facing Pages” pane of Compile’s “Page Settings” area. The right margin will act as the inside margin when you have “Use facing pages” ticked.
Before sending it off for proofing again, I would then compare the PDF result with the book that worked as exported from Word, ensuring that the margins look exactly the same. I would, in fact, open them in Preview.app, take a screenshot of them both at 100% scale, and measure the pixels of the margins in each in an image editing app just to ensure they are the same.
If you’re not sure, you can always send us a sample document that you know to have the correct margins (as a PDF) at mac.support AT literatureandlatte DOT com and we can check the settings in Scrivener for you - we don’t want you to have to pay £30 again unnecessarily.
I opened both in Preview and notice that in the older Word .pdf that the pages alternate between set to the right and to the left. I forget what this is called, but in the Document settings I had ticked “Mirror Margins”.
In the Scrivener .pdf each page is aligned exactly the same.
I have “Use facing pages” ticked in Compile.
Is there a way in Scrivener to use Mirror Margins? If so, I must have missed it.
“Use facing pages” does mirror the margins. So, if you have the left margin set to 0.5 and the right margin set to 0.85 and tick “Use facing pages”, then the first page will have a left margin of 0.5 and a right margin of 0.85, the second page will have a left margin of 0.85 and a right margin of 0.5, and so on.
Here is an example (note I actually set the left margin to 0.85 and the right margin to 0.5, since the first page is considered a recto page):
And here’s the result:
So I’m not sure why you aren’t seeing the same results. Could you post similar screenshots?
Yes, I should have been making the adjustment to the Left margin instead of the Right. Checking it in Preview at 0.85, I could barely detect the Mirror margin, but there it was. In the end, I set the Left Margin to 1.0, which gives me a decent gutter. Another proof is in the mail.
Was not planning to write another book, but Scriv is so much fun, I might just give it a go.
BTW, we here in Australia, AKA The Arse End of the World, deal in dollars not pounds.
Sheesh. Forums usually deteriorate sooner or later. Note the pound sign above. Reason I mentioned dollars, though at the time you wouldn’t have known they were Aussie.
As to the “HageyBoy” moniker, it’s a take off on “Huggy Boy” who was an R&B disc jockey in Los Angeles in the Fifties. As a kid I was called Hagey. So…a stay of execution?
Otherwise, I can’t quibble about any untoward comments about Arsetralia.
You think this thread has deteriorated? Just wait till Vic-K and his menagerie latch on to it.
Actually, in spite of the tradition here of off-topicking and generally playing around, it’s a good community of people, cats, dogs, and dinosaurs etc., who are generous in their help and advice to each other and know not to take themselves too seriously.
Okey Dokey, Monsieur Eeks (as they would say in France),
Off-topicking can be lotsa fun, I agree, but sooner or later some puffed-up purulent pipsqueak dons combat fatigues. To that end, I’ll see your Vic-K and raise you the moderator of bukowski.net for sheer evil bastardry. Ask for help there and he comes on like Tom Beringer in Platoon.
Oh Vic-K and alternates are not known for barstardy … just for reducing any thread to virtual inanity. But it’s all in fun … mind you one of his felines tends to end up responding with guns blazing.
Scrivener may be a noble bastion of intellectuals, but the idea of a feline with blazing guns held by slender hands has more than a certain je ne sais quoi. Vic-K is to be commended.
Commended? COMMENDED? Now look, Hag m’lad, we’ll have none of that Vidkun Quisling attitude here, thank you very much. Castigated? Yes. Castrated? Possibly, but commended? No. No. NO! The bloody cat is ARMED!
I see. But here is a question: Has the legendary and infamous Vic-K ever been seen in the flesh? If not, isn’t there a possibility that Vic-K is, in reality, Vicky, and the felines a Scrivener adaptation of Charlie’s Angels, none other than Vicky’s Angels?
