I’ve read all the posts from a few years ago about how Scrivener used to autocorrect i.e., to I.e., – it would capitalize the I. I am new to the Windows version 3.1.1.0, and I have the opposite problem: Every time I type I.e. at the beginning of a sentence, it changes the capital I to a lowercase one. There does not seem to be a universal opinion as to whether it’s good practice to start a sentence with I.e., but I often do. Some people say never do it, some people say it’s OK. Is there a way to get Scrivener to stop doing this? I’ve looked everywhere, and made changes in Options, none of which fix this. (And yes, I know that when it does it, I can Ctrl-Z and it will fix it, but that’s a pain.)
Hi.
Something worth trying :
In substitutions, replace i.e. for I.e. (Blue arrow)
Or try with the “Capitalize i” option (Green arrow)
Maybe it’ll override the correction (?)
Thanks, Vincent, for trying! However, I already had Capitalize “i” turned on, and tried it turned off as well, and that makes no difference either way. And your other suggestion doesn’t work except when I type I.e., at the beginning of a sentence (where I want it capitalized). In that I can see it first change I.e. to i.e., and then change it back to I.e. So, that part of it works, but then when I use i.e. in the middle of a sentence, where I don’t want it capitalized, it will change it to capitalized. I’m hoping someone with Scrivener sees this and knows what’s going on. But, as I said, thanks for trying!!
One more thing for anyone else reading this. Correct spelling errors as you type was turned OFF. (That’s the default, and I hadn’t changed it.)
That is pretty weird.
I checked and double-checked every options/settings I could think of.
I even checked Windows’ settings.
Tested in notepad & LibreOffice : “I.e.” acts there as you want it to.
Only Scrivener is doing that. (But I couldn’t find any substitution setting anywhere either.)
Must be some “correct as you type” for which we don’t have control. (Which is not the usual way Scrivener is. We usually have full control over such things…)
Yeah, that’s the only thing I can think of. BTW, I should have asked this earlier. But is it doing the same thing for you as well? From your last post, I’m guessing that it is. Other than these little annoying things to either get used to, or figure out better, I am loving Scrivener. I’m finally starting writing I’ve been wanting to do for years. Thanks again for your input.
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Yes
But I never use i.e.
So I didn’t know before trying it out.
Would be interesting to have feedback on this from a Mac user. @drmajorbob @gr
Well, I’m doubly grateful that you responded! I was a lawyer for almost 50 years, and used it a lot. Thanks for confirming that it’s not just me. I looked at the message which came when I signed up for the forum, and it said I could ask support (wasn’t aware of that – pretty amazing considering how inexpensive the program is). So I sent in a request. If I get an answer, I’ll post it here.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sentences do not start with i.e. Simple as that. But if you MUST do things that way, capitalize or uncap manually to taste.
Can you please tell us what happens (or doesn’t happen) if you type “I.e. blabla” ?
It remains lower case.
With or without the space (which shouldn’t be there), it remains lower case if I type it lower case. If I make it uppercase, that’s my error.
If the user wants to spell it “wrong”, that is none of our concern.
We just wanted to know if Scrivener made it lowercase…
But you eluded the question.
I answered the question. It stays the way I type it.
It does matter if people do it wrong, too.
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Hi. I see you and Vincent have been communicating! As for me, I’ve been down the rabbit hole on what you said. First, thanks for your post. Second, I’d already searched for some authority on this question, and found it both ways. Couldn’t find any real grammar authority which says this, including my Warriner’s. Did one one sort-of authority which said it was OK (AJE dot com, American Journal Experts).
BUT I am willing to concede that you are probably right. It is a bit like starting a sentence with a conjunction, isn’t it? But it would have been nice to find some grammar text which said so. (As I said, I was a lawyer for almost 50 years, and old habits die hard!) Obviously the people at Scrivener agree with you. 
It looks like a while back, because of the general discontent over “i.e.” being turned into “I.e.”, the Windows developers hardwired the conversion back to “i.e.” into the program. So to get “I.e.”, you can:
- type
Ctrl+Zafter the “I.e.” to undo the autocorrection and keep your capital, - add “I.e.” to the Auto-complete list in
Project ▸ Project Settings...and enable Suggest completions as you type for all projects in the Corrections tab of Options, and then select that from the popup when you’re typing and want the capitalised version, or - enable additional substitutions in the Corrections tab of Options and create a replacement like “IIE.” to convert to “I.e.”, then type that trigger text when you want to start the sentence with the “I.e.”
- You could also set up the substitution “I.e.” to “I.e.” but you will need to leave Capitalize ‘i’ deselected, or the interaction of auto-corrections will cause lowercase “i.e.” to also become “I.e.”, which presumably you don’t want.
That’s a minor crime I don’t believe should be prosecuted, most of the time, but starting with an abbreviation of any kind looks very odd, especially if it’s generally a lower-case abbreviation, in addition to the crime of starting with a conjunction (of sorts).
Ultimately, all grammar is convention. And the best thing about conventions is that there are so many to choose from. At the end of the day, do what the relevant style guides tell you to do and don’t sweat it.