I am having trouble with the compile feature. I am compiling my manuscript from Scrivener to Word. All normal indents I’ve made in Scrivener come out double indented in Word. This is a manuscript of 100,000 words so it would be extremely cumbersome to go through it and correct each indent. The other problem is that every thing that I have italicized in this manuscript is coming out underlined in Word. This too, would be a huge bummer to have to go through and correct manually. Can you tell me what I can do to avoid these issues when compiling?
Check with Compile format you are using. For instance, “Manuscript (Courier)” is set up to change underlines to italics. This is a setting that can be changed by editing the Compile format and using the options in the “Transformations” area of the Compile format editor.
As for the indents, my guess is that you have used tabs in the editor and that the Compile format is adding paragraph indents (using the ruler). If that’s the case, you will want to edit the format and set up the tab stops for the relevant Section Layouts instead of using indents. That said, it would be better to search the project and remove the tabs, and use indents instead, if this is indeed the problem, depending on the formats you wish to export to (ebook formats won’t work well with tabs, for instance).
All the best,
Keith
Keith, thanks for your kind reply. I will give it a try following what you have suggested. By the way, am I supposed to sometimes upgrade to a new version of Scrivener? I bought it about 3 years ago.
Oh, sorry, my reply was based on Scrivener 3, but if you bought three years ago, you will have Scrivener 2. Basically, all point updates are free (2.1 > 2.3 > 2.3 etc), but major upgrades (2.x > 3) are paid (but heavily discounted for owners of older versions). We have only had two paid updates in the eleven years Scrivener has been around, so they are very infrequent. You don’t have to update, though. The only thing to bear in mind is that if you upgrade to a new version of macOS, an older version of Scrivener (such as v2) might not work on it, or not work as well.
Anyway, for version 2, the same applies except that there are no such things as “Section Layouts” - instead you will edit the overridden formatting in the “Formatting” area of Compile (but still check “Transformations” in Compile for italics becoming underlines).
All the best,
Keith
Thanks, where/how do I do a point update and is that important? I looked around on the Lit & Latte site and could not find anything about updates.
Anyway, for version 2, the same applies except that there are no such things as “Section Layouts” - instead you will edit the overridden formatting in the “Formatting” area of Compile (but still check “Transformations” in Compile for italics becoming underlines).
I will give it a try now.
Keith, thanks, it is getting better but regarding the indents, it does not look as thought I used tabs. It looks like I used the ruler but I clearly used it incorrectly. When I look at the ruler in this project in Scrivener, there are some chapters where the arrow and the horizontal bar are both at zero and others where the bar is 5 notches over.
Some chapters are indented normally after the compile and some are not. Would it work to select the whole project in Scrivener, and move the arrow and the bar back to zero? Does the compile feature create the indents on its own? Or for the compile feature to handle the indents correctly, where should the blue arrow and blue horizontal bar be in Scrivener’s ruler?
Or, here is another idea: when I am in a chapter in Scrivener, there’s a side bar on the right that has an area called “general”. What would happen there if I click “compile as is” ? would it help it to compile with the indents the way I have them?
Sorry for the late reply. Ticking “Compile as-is” would ensure the documents get compiled exactly as they look in the editor, but you generally only want to use that for exception cases. It sounds as though the problem is that you have chosen to Compile using a format that overrides the text formatting (some formats will add bigger indents), whereas you want things looking as they do in the editor. Instead, when you go to Compile, from the “Format as” menu button, choose “Original”. This will compile your text exactly as it appears in the editor.
Alternatively, if you like everything else about the format you are using, you can select "Formatting " in the Compile panel and un-tick “Override text and notes formating” (make sure that “All Options” is selected at the top to see these options).
All the best,
Keith