I use Scrivener to write short stories, I always use the Fiction/Short Story template and when I compile, I compile to PDF using the simple courier format near the top of the list. I have never had any issues with this. Today, I compiled my latest story and noticed that in the PDF, partial sentences were sometimes cut at the top of new pages. Not every page, and I haven’t worked out if there is a consistency to the cut sentences (they can be middle, end, start of a paragraph). I have tried editing the format to pad new pages with blank lines which just seems to have changed the places where the problem occurs rather than solving it. I note that I installed an update today and wonder if this is actually a bug arising from that rather than something I have done wrong. Grateful for any help.
Hello and welcome.
To help, I think people will need to know which version of MacOS and which version of Scrivener. If the update you installed is to Sonoma, you’d do well to ensure you’re updated to Scrivener 3.3.4; if you’ve updated to 3.3.4 but are using an older version of MacOS, that is important to know.
Mark
Thanks for replying and sorry for the omissions.
I am using the latest update of MacOS Sonoma that has been made available to me (not on my Mac so I can’t check the exact version but unless there’s a new update currently rolling, I have the latest). Also using Scrivener 3.3.4, was prompted to update when I launched it yesterday.
Ok. I think @KB or @AmberV may need to know of this. In the meantime, till they can have a look at it, I’d try compiling to DOCX or RTF, opening it in your word processor and exporting/printing to PDF from there.
Mark
PS. I see that in the thread on crashes with Sonoma there is a new post by @rwross on exactly the same problem as yours. So Keith will definitely pick it up. Sonoma has caused lots of page layout problems for apps like Scrivener and Nisus Writer Pro built on the Apple TextKit.
Since replying, I noticed another thread with the same problem, same unprecedented nature. They mentioned unchecking “avoid widows and orphans” and this seems to have solved it for me. It has been fine for years before yesterday though so it feels like an unintended consequence of the update.
I’ve run into this as well
Here’s a link to what my tests have shown…
Thanks for this. What you describe is identical to what I am experiencing, 1-2 lines of text lost from the top of a new page, no discernible logic to when it does/doesn’t happen but I get 3 instances of it in a 3800 word/10 page compile. The widows and orphans solution mentioned above has enabled me to compile this story at least but I will wait for further updates fix it properly.
@DemStims Sure thing…happy to help. So you turned off Widows and Orphans in the compile settings?
…and that corrected the whole issue? Unfortunately my project is 425 pages long, so I’m afraid that if I turn off that setting and the page length changes it may be do to the setting or the bug and I won’t know which. I wonder why that setting would fix this problem because at least in my project it the pages affected weren’t widows or orphans.
Yes, I unchecked “avoid widows and orphans” per the suggestion of the thread I linked to. My manuscripts are tiny compared to yours and I am a basic/default-settings user compiling for a test reader (ie the technical details in your thread are waaaay over my head), so it’s not a huge issue for me. I think you are wise not to risk it! The problems in my manuscript were also not widows and orphans.
Please try this build, which should fix the issue:
Once the fix is confirmed, I’ll get 3.3.5 out with this in either today or tomorrow.
Thanks and all the best,
Keith
@KB That build fixed it for me. Thank you very much!
Great, thanks for confirming!
I started writing a post about the exact same thing yesterday, but figured maybe I’d wait until I updated to Sonoma to see if that helped… but it was… rather “sudden” that compile started cutting off lines, it seemed. I’ve published 7 books with the widows and orphans on without a problem until the last 2 chapters of my current WIP (book 8). And then no matter what I did (short of turning off the widows/orphans feature) fixed it.
3.3.4 (16228)
Now updated to Sonoma and it still happens. sigh
Load the build given by KB just above!
Done. A bit wary after losing all my Project compile files after last time though, but since I’ve been updating from patches here now and not the app store, I guess it’s stable. Seems to have fixed it.
Not sure if you want to do this, but I generally think information is good, even if one decides the risks outweigh the benefits.
You mentioned that a new version of the Scrivener.app caused you to lose your project compile files. First off, this really shouldn’t be able to happen since the project compile files are stored in the actual projects *.scriv bundle. Then again weird stuff can happen so I’m not saying it didn’t.
However, there is a way for you to create a safe copy of that prior to making any risky changes to the app or project. If you right click on the *.scriv file you can show package contents, then open the Settings folder…then open the Compile Formats folder. (I’ve included a screen cap so you can see the breadcrumb folder structure). At that point you should see one or more compile files. You can then COPY (not move) that file to some place safe and use it as a backup. Should anything go awry, just reverse the process, using your backup.
Hope this helps…
