I have my compiled book in Documents on my Mac. When trying to upload the interior file on Barnes and Noble, they say there is a problem with the file. I can’t find the original project in Scriviner. All I have is the compiled e-pub in my documents. Is there a way to get the compiled work back into Scriviner so I can compile it again in another format, such as Dox or something B&N will accept?
It’s worth spending some effort trying to find the original project. You can use Finder to search for all .scriv files on your system, and also for text that you would expect to find in the project.
Depending on the nature of the error, it might also be worthwhile to edit the ePub directly, using a tool like Sigil.
It’s technically possible to copy and paste from ePub files, and you might be able to use a third-party tool to convert from ePub to HTML, which Scrivener can import. But I’d view this as the solution of last resort. You’d likely spend a great deal of time trying to get the imported text back into publishable shape.
Thanks. I am being defeated in this attempt. Is it possible to take from Documents, my compiled e-pub, or PDF and put them back into Scriviner? These two documents on my Mac are the only place I can find the book. I was able to upload both to Amazon for e-book (Kindle) and PDF for Paperback publication. Barnes & Noble will not accept those same files. Can’t I import them back into Scriviner somehow?
Neither PDF nor ePub format is editable by Scrivener. You can import those items to the Research folder, but that’s it.
Let’s see if you can recover a back up of your project:
- Open Scrivener, and then go to the menu Scrivener->Preferences.
- In that window, go to the Backups section, and then there should be a button to open the backups folder in Finder. Use that, find the most recent copy of your project.
- Copy that project to your Documents.
- Still in the Finder, double-click that copy in Documents to extract the archive.
You should then be able to open your project in Scrivener and go from there.