Hey there,
I would like to say that Scrivener has been a life-saving software for me when I write my novels. Even today, I can understand pretty well the compiling options it has, and I am able to achieve great results with it. My only complaint would be regarding orphans and widows, which you must fix manually since there is no option to do so automatically (on the Mac version, there is, though, but I unfortunately don’t have a Mac). Also, hyphenation, which is one of the things most authors get wrong when they publish. And finally, the huge gaps of white space between some words when there are only a few words on a line (it makes it look bad since the space is different from the lines above and below). All of that looks unprofessional, and unfortunately nowadays you have to use another software to try to fix it. I don’t think the Scrivener team will update this for at least a couple of years more (since they’re working on another new software that was in beta), but it would be nice to at least know what all of you, other users, use to fix these problems.
I don’t know if we can mention other software names, but I know two of them (one starts with V and the other with A) that people say are good for this. The second is available on Windows and the other one not, and I’ve also heard it’s not even close to perfect. There’s also talk about MWord, but I’ve heard others say that the best way to fix widows and orphans is to do it manually in the manuscript, and for the huge gaps between words and hyphenation issues, just rewrite the affected parts. Is that true?
One question: how do you know if your book has these problems? The page preview that Scrivener provides isn’t perfect while you write, and sometimes the page count changes a little when you compile. Do you compile to PDF and check it there? Do you compile to PDF and upload it to KDP, for example, to see how it appears in the KDP previewer? Do you ask for a proof copy before uploading to KDP so you can truly see how it looks in paperback?
I write in fully justified text, and I have these problems. I’ve been wondering how to know how it really looks in paperback and ebook, and how to fix it before publishing. Unfortunately, where I am from, the cost of sending it to a layout professional for high-quality work is half of the minimum wage. If someone needs a professional cover, professional editing, and so on, the total could easily exceed 1,500 dollars, which here is equivalent to two months’ wages. So I can’t do that, but I want to at least look on the inside the best it can be.
Cheers and thanks to all. Sorry for my English, since it’s not my first language.
