The question is how do I get rid of the asterisks in my compiled output? See the first image below. If I delete the layout and recreate it, it works for a while.
I copied the Manuscript (Times) compile layout and modified it. At first, it created the page breaks as it should have, but then it started adding asterisks after I edited the title page, which compiles As Is, to alter the paragraph properties. Below are some screen shots to show the problem and the settings that produce it. Note below that I removed asterisks from all settings, but still they appear in the output.
Here is the docx output. After the title page, the compile inserts the asterisks instead of page breaks. There should be a page break after Part One and before Chapter One. Also note the asterisks after the chapter title.
I’m limited to 3 images in this post, but the separator for text is “@@@” just to prove it isn’t causing the problem. Those “@@@” show between scenes, but they have no impact on the asterisks.
I also have this problem with beta 22 / RC2 when compiling to PDF. Tiho already has a test document that I sent last week to him to resolve a compile crash issue that shows this problem when compiled to PDF. I am emailing him a PDF of that project in a few minutes.
Update: This issue started after numerous edits to the compile layout and changing the title page paragraph attributes. I didn’t upload a sample project because another user mentioned uploading info that showed the issue.
I changed my project to use custom styles that I created, and I was able to use the compile layout without the asterisks. I thought that was the answer to resolve the issue, but I was wrong.
I keep getting one blank line between the chapter and the scene text. While trying the various options for the separator between sections, Single Return, Empty Line, or Custom with nothing specified, I started getting three asterisks between the chapter and the scene text.
I closed Scrivener and restarted it. The asterisks are gone, but I still have the blank line between the chapter and scene.
Another change I made was while editing the layout, with Section Layouts selected on the left and the layout I’m using selected in the list, I clicked the New Pages tab and set the Pad Top of Page with number to zero. This doesn’t explain why the empty lines were filled with asterisks, but it removed most of the problems by getting rid of the extra lines which I’ll handle with styles.
Maybe this information helps determine the cause of the asterisks.
Please, check the “Chapter”, “Chapter with Title”, “Titled Section” and all the other Section Layouts within the “Separators” section. The “Blank line separator:” field has an asterisk(as displayed in the screenshot below) which you may want to remove, or remove the empty lines at the beginning, middle and at the end of your document.
Also this doesn’t explain the new page commands being ignored.
I have this issue on one install, but not on another, using the same project and the same compile format. The only difference is that on the install that works, I had freshly imported the compile format. Please let me know if you’d like the compile format files from these two different installs to compare them (and the path to find them). They look identical on both installs (no blank line separators in either in any of the sections).
Note that this compile format wasn’t changed in any way. I didn’t have this issue with beta 21, it appeared on one install after the update to beta 22.
