I enjoy working in Scrivener every day. I write both poetry and prose, and I really wish there would be a way of changing the function of the Return key, especially when writing poetry, so that Return meant what it meant in the old days: simply a new line (like in this form), not a whole new paragraph.
I know I can get this by using ctrl+Return, but it still feels confusing or counter intuitive, especially while the same command is shift+Return in other software – like for instance Word that I still sometimes have to switch to.
And there is no way of changing the keyboard commands, as far as I am aware. Or are there?
Another approach would be to change the line spacing for your poetry documents. If you’re in Windows, you’ll find the Line Spacing control on the Format Bar; edit a setting via “More…”, the last entry on the dropdown. Select Single line spacing, and zero out the numeric spacing entries for Before and After. Should give you single line spacing on Return for those portions of each doc to which you apply that setting.
The way I figure it, a carriage return has not merely meant “start a new line” since the typewriter!
It never occured to me to distinguish between line breaks and stanza breaks other than by leaving a blank line for stanza breaks. And your post has made me realize how old-thinking that is and contrary to my style-heavy ways in other textual domains.
In my own case, I would solve this with my key macro application. The solution would consist of a key command to toggle in and out of a poetry-typing mode that would be specific to Scrivener. In that mode, my macro program would intercept the typed returns and swap the key stroke for new line and the one for new paragraph.
–gr
P.s. Another expedient might be changing the new line keystroke in Word to match that of Scrivener so as to have consistency between them. Most key commands in Word are customizable. Not sitting at my mac, by I think the customizing menu item is on the Tools menu. And changing Word to match makes sense, because, heck, isn’t Word just an accessory for Scrivener now?
Isn’t it easier to simply use Ctrl-Return? One extra key, in real time, with the added bonus that it is built in: no programming of macros required. What am I missing?
You can change keyboard commands via OS X’s System Preferences but, sadly, it won’t allow you to allocate Shift-Return.
I don’t know why Shift-Return is not the default shortcut in Scrivener, it’s one that I use a lot in other apps, but when I use Scrivener I soon remember to use Ctrl-Return. To my mind, a line break is usually the Return key plus a modifier, so it’s just a matter of remembering which modifier applies: Shift return, Opt-Return, Ctrl-Return are always the top three on the list, although it’s interesting to note that the official Scrivener shortcut for a line beak is Opt-Cmd-Return (look under the Edit Menu).
Ah, but cyf’s stated woe is precisely having to do that. I might personally agree with you on this, but here in the fantasy island forum its all about making dreams come true!
I actually suspect that Jerome may have identified the real problem already. Cyf’s problem may simply be owing to the fact the his or her default paragraph is set to put line space after. Solved by changing that for poetry documents or maybe setting up a custom paragraph preset for poetry.
