Semantics Markup, Latex without MMD, and Scrivener

Scrivener
1

I have found that I can very easily use Latex with Scrivener, using my own markup (very much like the Semantic markup of Ulysses.) This allows me to use any Latex package I want; set it up the way I want it; without getting into the business of style sheets, MMD, etc.

Like the semantic markup of Ulysses, the markup I coin, can mean different things in different contexts (for example: while exporting to Latex, my markup can mean one thing; while exporting to Word, another.)

Using Latex without MMD

So, to set up your project to use Latex, just drop a page in Scrivener, and make this your very first page. If, for example, you are using the sffms package (which I use, and is perfect for short story & novel,) just paste this on this page:

%First Page%
\documentclass{sffms}
\author{Your Name}
\title{Your story title}
\begin{document}

Then, create a Last page for your project (this should be the very last page,) with just one line of content:

%This is the last page%
\end{document}

And, that’s basically it. All your content pages go in between the First Page and the Last Page. You simply compile your project as a text file (note: no export to MMD,) with a tex extension, and compile it in TextShop to get a perfect Latex document.

Using your own (semantic) Mark Up

You can coin any markup that is convenient to you; and then simply use the Replacement option in compile setting to change the meaning of your tags. For example, I have two compile settings: one for Latex, the other for rtf. Taking the example of italics, I want italics to me marked up as \emph{TheItalicWord} when compiling to Latex ; and as TheItalicWord, when compiling to Word(rtf) – this is because, I can do a AutoFormat in Word, and Word flips anything tagged as TheItalicWord to regular italics.

My mark up for italics is: [b] i]TheItalicWord[i [/b]

And, This is what my Replacement option looks like in my two compile settings:

Latex:
Replace:
i] with \emph{
[i with }

Rtf:
i] with _
[i with _

You get the idea: just coin any starting and ending tags, and use Scrivener’s replacement option to make it mean whatever you feel like. That’s what Ulysses does doesn’t it? I have set up my own tags for quite a few Latex tags–and I get excellent results. It turned out to be so easy-- that I almost got sentimental (for a quite a while I researched many other products, including Ulysses; and finally found the Scrivener can do a much better job at Semantic markup & Latex, then even Ulysses.)

I hope this is useful to you

Harsh

2

Excellent post; thanks for putting this together. You could also enable smart quotes while writing, and then set up replacements for “ -> `` and ” -> ‘’ and etc. You’ll probably want to also escape a few common characters with replacements as well, like &.

There are a few other tricks you can use. Use the Formatting pane to assign binder titles to LaTeX headers. Since Scrivener allows multi-level rules, you could go from part down to subsubsection, with everything below that point being emitted as an sss. Meanwhile you should be able to create a custom meta-data field for the section label and emit that in the title suffix as well, like so:

For some reason it isn’t evaluating though; I thought we fixed that. Hmm.

Well, at least the title part works. Just add “\section{” for the prefix and “}” for the suffix.

Also take a look at Separators. Those can be awfully handy for inserting procedural items. In fact MMD inserts a \pagebreak command when using the MMD->LaTeX command, if you set any of those to page break. Similar ideas could be used here, such as inserting a nice divider between text sections.

One thing that is already on the table for consideration is allowing you to adjust the prefix and suffix for footnotes in plain-text. This would allow you to use Scrivener’s built-in footnote feature to write footnotes, and then compile them with \footnote{} syntax. I’m not sure what the status of that feature request is at though.

3

You will love the $@ token in Scrivener’s ‘Replacements’ dialog. :smiley:
See Ioa’s explanation here.

4

Yes. Thanks for bringing that one up as well. That is an invaluable trick when constructing your own expansion syntax with replacements. Should cut your list down quite a bit!