It’s quite easy to have a text separator between sections. What I’m looking for is a separator that would look like this:
Blank line
Separator
Blank line
I can’t seem to get it done.
The trick is to enter:
⌥↵ (option + return)
Separator
⌥↵
(The input field will appear empty after that, but you can scroll trough the lines using the up and down cursor keys.)
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Great. I will try this solution at once.
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Option > Return seems to just add a carriage return. It appears to do nothing other than what happens when you hit Return. ‘Show Invisibles’ seems to indicate nothing other than that.
Is this a “soft scene break”, i.e. a continuous document with a scene break marker, where on Windows the Option+Return would be Shift+Enter?
I don’t understand how this relates to the Separators input field(s) in the Compiler.
After you hit “Compile” it is, I guess.
Maybe? You’re the Windows user. Give it a try? Whatever lets you enter multiple lines in a single line input field is a correct answer. 
Yeah, it’s how I visualise it but I’d never use the approach.
That may be the reason why someone else asked this question. 
Maybe I don’t understand. Your ‘trick’ was something done in the Editor, right? NOT the compiler?
I assume it is a ‘trick’ to create some sort of separator? Regale us.
The term ‘separator’ is a term typically used by L&L to refer to 3 different ways to indicate graphically, to the writer and not to the reader, where one document ends and another begins in the Editor, when a group of docs are all selected together in the Binder.
They are there to keep the writer apprised of where those ends and beginnings are, and are never seen in a compiled document.
That term is typically not used when writers want to create some sort of indication, directly to the reader, that there has been a possible shift in focus, a change in location, a gap in time, or some combination of the three, which is often a boundary between one scene ending and another beginning.
That’s a desire to create something that IS visible to the reader, and actually has very little to do with the technical separator, as things are usually structured. It’s usually just a blank carriage return, or maybe a dinkus.
Is it used also in the Compiler to create some sort of visible ‘separation’ to the reader and this is some sort of shortcut to do that in some preplanned manner? If so, I never knew this.
I’m not savvy about compiling, I just know enough to be dangerous, and get the job done. I consider formatting structure to be the job of the writer rather than the job of the compiler, which I rely on to simply translate what I have created, including everything visible to the reader, into a form they can read.
It’s unclear (to me) what the original poster might have been getting at. Do they want the compiler to operate in a particular way? Or do they want the Editor to show separators to the writer in a particular way? Or do they want to show scene breaks directly to the reader in the compiled output in a particular way?
How ‘show invisibles’ relates is to indicate what else may be there that is hidden to the reader. When I tried your ‘trick’ it appeared to do nothing other than what the return key itself would do, which is a carriage return indicated by a pilcrow. So I invoked that, wondering if it could solve the mystery. That is all. It didn’t. Nothing to do with the compiler, which was not expressed clearly in the original question, and never mentioned in the thread at all.
Just to make it clear, on the Mac the line break (at least on my Macs) is Opt-Cmd-Return, not Opt-Return.
Whatever the purpose intended by the OP, s/he titles the thread “Separators between documents” without specifying whether he means in the editor in Scrivenings or after compiling.
Presuming the documents are separate files in the Binder, for whichever purpose, there would have to be a blank line at the end of the document preceding the separator, and another at the beginning of the following document.
Then, if the compile target is ePub, those blank lines would have to contain a non-breaking-space, because compiling to ePub goes through MultiMarkdown essentially resulting in HTML, which will ignore empty blank lines.
Mark
My ½p
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No. The opposite. I was talking about the Compiler exclusively. Maybe I’m wrong, but I had no doubt that’s what the OP wanted to know, hence the category compile (and not e.g. “text-editing”).
True, but why muddy the waters with information the OP didn’t ask for? It was a very simple question which has a very simple answer. Of course different document formats require further modifications. 
To save the OP from having tp come back to tell us that s/he is compiling to ePub and putting blank lines in doesn’t work!
Mark
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Except that the term ‘compile’ was never mentioned anywhere in the thread.
Until by you. And not until your second reply.
It’s only a ‘very simple question’ if the context is clear. It wasn’t. Not in the OP’s question and not in any of the replies.
I envy your knowledge about compiling. I watched all the videos and took two online courses and still feel like I barely know enough to get the job done.
Never hold back. The rest of us will benefit. Thx.
Then wouldn’t it be easier to just copy and paste the Scrivener manual? It contains all answers to all questions the OP also didn’t ask. 
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That’s both right and wrong at the same time. Like a “Schrödinger’s reply”. 
Yes, the term wasn’t mentioned in the thread (initially), but no, it doesn’t have to be, because look at the forum category:
Thanks, but I actually feel the same most of the time.
I’ve been trying to do this for the past 137 thousand years!
Thank you SO SO much! You’re a savior!!!
Happy 2025!!!
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