I have a draft of my novel, and I want to print some copies so people can go through and write edits in it. If I compile it to print, does it print A4 or A5? I’m doing it in either Standard Manuscript Format or Paperback Novel, whichever is better (I don’t know the difference to be honest).
Also; what’s the best settings to print it? Go to RTF then print (what’s the best program to use for printing an RTF), PDF then print or straight to print? I loved using Scrivener for sorting all my novel info and scenes etc, but now when it’s come to printing I’m so lost, it’s kind of disheartening to have that happen.
I don’t have the time to go through the immense tutorials and FAQs in depth, I had a brief glance and couldn’t find any info regarding this.
This doesn’t answer your questions directly, but I do recommend if you want to continue with Scrivener that you go through the Interactive Tutorial (under the Help menu in the application). It’s not immense, and it will be the most useful hour-plus-a-bit you can spend, Scrivener-wise.
I second Hugh’s comment. Every now and again I go back revisit parts of the tutorial: very very helpful. Since it is you just following instructions in a Scrivener document (no videos to watch that take 5 minutes to say “click here”*) it is possible to skim parts you understand if you really need to save time so you can focus on the areas that need more attention.
As for your question about printing - you can print directly from Scrivener.There are a multiple ways of doing so. While you can compile to Print (which works very well), it may be helpful to compile to a PDF so you can check everything is the way you want it (including page size, layout, headings, etc) and then print the PDF from Preview. It also means you could send that PDF to people if they prefer to make electronic edits (which can also be done using Preview).
[size=85]*This is not a comment on Literature & Latte’s excellent videos. Let’s just say a certain Windows-only qualitative research application has soured my taste for instructional videos. And for using qualitative research software. [/size]
It’s a very good idea to use “Compile to PDF”, and as nom says, and then check the output in Preview before you commit it to paper … especially if it’s a long document. In point of fact, if you “Compile to Print”, since OS-X uses PDF as its native print format, you will get a PDF button in the bottom left of the Print dialog; clicking on that will drop down a menu, one option on which is “Open PDF in Preview” which lets you check before you go any further, but you then need to choose “Save As” from the file menu to save the resulting PDF with a sensible name or click on the Print button, bottom right, to send it direct to the printer. If you cancel, you are left in Preview, so need to go back to Scrivener.
Assuming you’re using Scrivener v 2.x, if you compile to print or PDF, there is a “Page Setup” option — click the “All options” tab in the dialog — where you can set the page size to whatever you need. If you do nothing, it will use the size set up for the project. To check that go to or Shift-Cmd-P; the size will almost certainly whatever you have as the standard for your printer.
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