Scrivener 3 and scene break icons

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

I have Scrivener 3 for Mac and would like to start using scene break icons.

I checked on-line and most of the instructions are for Scrivener 2.

How do I code scene break icons in Scrivener 3 besides copying and pasting the image in at the end of every scene?

Thanks!

2

What to specifically do depends on what you mean by an icon. If you open up Compile on your project, click on the “Modern” format in the sidebar, and then click the Assign Section Types… button you will find examples in that list that use a little Unicode icon between scenes—that’s one way of doing it.

To see how that works, right-click on the format and choose “Duplicate & Edit Format…”, then click on the Separators format pane—now you should be in somewhat familiar territory with regards to Scrivener 2 tutorials—though how this pane works is quite a bit more flexible than the old system. In the old system you might insert your icon between two text files. In 3 you are working with Types rather than files vs folders, but the idea is roughly the same.

  • Click on the Section Text layout to see how it inserts the glyph whenever two items (scenes most likely) using this section type are adjacent in the outline.
  • In the “Titled Section” separators we see a slightly different thing in use. In this case the layout is used for longer chunks of text with their own heading, and so one might want to convert any blank lines found within that text to the Unicode separator.

You can also use <$img:binderItemName> tags in here if you have a graphic you’d like to insert instead of a Unicode character—as it sounds like you do.

Using this example you could modify your own format if you’ve already started on making one, or you could work from this format as a basis.

3

Thanks so much; this is exactly what I was looking for. In publishing books, the spacing is often unclear because e-publishing makes the text infinitely variable, so those breaks are essential to make clear. Thanks!

4

You’re welcome! I agree, I think until other better solutions are developed (or evolve out of standards that aren’t commonly used yet), using a visual marker between scenes is the preferable approach to dynamic layout ebook publishing. Come to think it, I’m not sure why our stock Ebook compile format uses empty space for default separation, hmm.