Scrivener is getting my name wrong

inverseroom · January 16, 2011, 12:54am

When buying my Scrivener license the other day, I used my first name and last name to register. But I write professionally under my first initial and middle name. Scrivener keeps putting my other name into documents, and lists it under Author when I compile to PDF. I tried changing it in my address book to my professional name, but the software still seems to like the personal name. Any ideas?

MimeticMouton · January 16, 2011, 2:06am

Hmm. It should take it from your name in the address book–the fields are these:

Scrivener Placeholder Tags List:

<$template_firstName> : User’s forename of first name as set in Address Book.
<$template_lastName> : User’s surname or last name as set in Address Book.
<$template_fullName> : User’s full name, from Address Book or account settings.
<$template_initial> : First letter of user’s forename, as set in Address Book.
<$surname>, <$lastname> : Gets replaced with the user’s surname or last name during the Compile process, as set in the user’s Address Book. If the tag appears in uppercase, the surname will be uppercased too.
<$forename>, <$firstname> : Gets replaced with the user’s forename or firstname name during the Compile process, as set in the user’s Address Book. If the tag appears in uppercase, the forename will be uppercased too.
<$initial> : Gets replaced with the first letter of the user’s forename during the Compile process, as set in the user’s Address Book.
<$username>, <$name>, <$fullname> : Gets replaced with the user’s full name during the Compile process, as set in the user’s Address Book or account settings. If the tag appears in uppercase, the user’s name will be uppercased too.

However, anything in a template gets set as soon as you create the project, so changing your name in the Address Book won’t change the names in an existing project (with the exception of variables that get replaced at compile, e.g. <$surname> in the page header). Is the name still appearing wrong even in projects created since altering the name in Address Book? (Also, did you double-check the name is correct in Address Book after you changed it?–It’s probably just me, but I’ve had occasions where I thought I adjusted something in that but didn’t really commit the changes.)

inverseroom · January 16, 2011, 12:10pm

A new project, created from a stock template, will now put the correct name on the title page, but will put the wrong name in the author dialog when I go to compile to pdf. It’s the latter I find more bothersome, since my custom templates don’t actually draw from the address book.

Not a terribly big deal, but a little annoying to have to change each time. I suspect the pdf dialog is based on the name the software is registered to, not the name in the address book. But I can’t find where this name is stored.

KB · January 16, 2011, 1:06pm

Hi,

No, it doesn’t use the user name you used to register at all - it only uses the name from Address Book. However, the name plonked in the “Save As PDF” dialogue has nothing to do with Scrivener but is entered by OS X itself, I’m afraid, so I have no control over it (there are no APIs available for accessing or controlling the “Save As PDF” dialogue, unfortunately). You can confirm this for yourself by selecting File > Print… > PDF > Save As PDF in any other program, such as Safari, for instance. I’m not sure where OS X grabs the name from - probably from the user account.

All the best,
Keith

inverseroom · January 16, 2011, 4:00pm

Aha! Thanks, Keith. I’ll try to persuade Snow Leopard to treat me right.

Really enjoying Scrivener 2, by the way.

inverseroom · January 16, 2011, 4:03pm

Yep, that did it–I changed my name in the OSX user account, and Scrivener is now putting it in the pdf dialog. Thanks again!

KB · January 16, 2011, 4:19pm

Glad that helped - and good to hear you’re enjoying Scriv 2.0, too!
All the best,
Keith

MimeticMouton · January 16, 2011, 4:20pm

Ah, cool, good to know. Sorry to have steered you wrong!