Whenever I suggest anything there seems to be a chorus in defense of current practices, so shoot me if this is out of line… And if there’s a way to do this already, please explain. I have tried what I think are the obvious things, but…
I want to see a poetry manuscript in page view/two pages across. The only way I’ve found to do this shows it in Scrivenings view. I’m looking for a full layout so I don’t have to send this thing to Word to see how the pieces are going to fall (one poem per page) in relation to one another. But it seems I can either select the manuscript folder and get side-by-sides in scrivenings, or I can select a particular poem document and get a blank page on the right, or side-by-sides if it’s longer than one page, but not the whole book… I suppose it would work if I put all the poems into one text file, but I’d rather not because I want to move them around, and also I am moving pieces in and out of different manuscripts–book, chapbook, longer chapbook, etc. Do I really have to move the entire project into one text file to make it appear in two-page view?
Building a poetry MS in Word involves cutting and pasting each individual poem into the manuscript doc, and then cutting and pasting whenever I want to move a poem. If I have to put the poems into one text file, I’ll be in the same situation.
I don’t understand why scrivenings mode won’t do this for you? Load the manuscript into scrivenings mode and then swich to two pages across page view mode. That will show the whole book in page view mode, side-by-side. Sorry, I’m not clear on which part isn’t working for you.
go to view -> page view -> two pages across. if you are using a mac. dunno how it is for windows.
I guess this issue is related my issue: how does one look at two or more scrivinings simultaneously? Split screen allows for two. But anything more requires one to click the ‘quick ref’ button to pop out a window for the writing. But it would be interesting if there were a neater way to look at multiple scrivinings all at the same time.
I know Keith mentioned this issue would be addressed in the future iterations of Scrivener so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Thanks. With poetry there is a page break before each poem. Scrivenings, as far as I can tell, just shows the words on the page with lines for the page breaks. So a short page might be combined with 2 other poems on the left side of the two-page view, while a long poem may go one for who knows how long. There are usually rules for, say, chapbook submissions–some are 20, some 24, some 40 pp. So I’m changing the MS with each submission. If I put it in two-page view, and one of the poems is multiple pages and one is just eight lines, the balance is thrown off and you can’t see which poems will be opposite one another in a 2-page spread. Screenshot attached.
Page view doesn’t know anything about Compile, so the separators (such as page breaks) you set in the Compile won’t be reflected in page view. However, if you tick “Page break before” in the Inspector for an item, that will be reflected in page view, so that should do what you want if I understand correctly.
All the best,
Keith
Yes! This mostly works. Sometimes there are blank pages for no reason I can see (no blank lines left on the previous page, for instance), which messes up the math, but at least there’s less to math to do.
Hm. I guess I would put in a wish list request for a “manuscript view” if possible, at some point.
