I use Scrivener (2.0) mostly for its organizational architecture; its higher-end features exceed my grasp, as they seem to rely on complicated computer/database knowledge and acumen. Maybe one day I’ll take a computer class and be able to use those features.
But for now, I have a question about “Paste and Match Style.” When I use this option with text that has been imported from Word or another program, the pasted text does not match the style of my other documents in the Scrivener project. The line spacing is off, the font and font size are off, the spacing between paragraphs is off, and the indents are off. I can easily adjust the line spacing and font through the format bar, but the other changes are time consuming and seem like the kind of thing I shouldn’t have to do when I am Pasting with Match Style. Does Scrivener have a way that I can apply styles from the other documents to the imported documents? And/or does it have another Paste method that will paste only the text, in the style of the other documents?
I looked for assistance in the Manual, but “Homogenising Format Styles” seems to be as yet unfinished in the version I have.
Not directly, no. This particular feature is a chameleon. It takes the format settings from around the cursor itself, and is completely oblivious to anything beyond that narrow blinking line. Even if the top of your document looks one way, if the formatting around the cursor is different, Paste and Match Style will acquire the formatting around the cursor (even if it is invisible)—lot alone acquiring formatting from other documents entirely. What it sounds like is: you’ve got your formatting preferences set up one way and the documents you’ve been working in set up another way. Since 2.0 has a different preference setup than 1.x did, you might just be running out of sync because the default formatting preferences reverted to the Scrivener default when you upgraded.
Easiest way to fix that is to find a document exhibiting formatting the way you like, place the cursor into any paragraph that serves as an exemplar, and then open preferences, click on the Formatting pane, and then click the Use Current button. Now any new documents you create will be set up like the old documents, and when you create a new document to Paste and Match Style into, it will all look the same.
To fix any documents that are already “wrong” from having the setting desynchronised, simply select them and use the menu command Documents/Convert/Formatting to Default Text Style. That, I believe, answers your secondary question about there being a faster way to do all of this.
There are two other tools that can speed up the formatting process if you are working “off default”. Well, three. One is for when you have a project that requires different formatting than the standard application default. You can set up a project override in in the Project/Text Preferences... menu. This has the same handy Use Current button. Now that conversion command above will reference this instead of the main application format.
The second pair of tools are Copy Font / Ruler, and Paste Font / Ruler. You can find all four respective commands in the Format/Text and Format/Font menus. These have shortcuts, so you can quickly grab formatting from one part of your document, and paste it to another part.
One is for when you have a project that requires different formatting than the standard application default. You can set up a project override in in the