I have a “Quote” Style, indented and italicized. When I Compile, it retains the italics, but there are no line spaces between paragraphs.
Hello,
When a style is applied to text in the editor, it then compiles as it looks in the editor.
The only time that rule differs is if the style is also present in the compile format’s styles list. In which case that text will compile as per the formatting set in the styles panel of the compile format for that one style. A style will compile as per the formatting of that said style as it was at the time it was added to the compile format’s styles list, unless you have further tweaked it in the compile format’s styles panel. Reformatting the style in the project will have no effect at compile once the style has been added to that list. Nor would reformatting the text in the editor.
If you have modified the style in your project and wish that text to compile so, you can remove the style from the compile format’s styles list.
(Or remove it and add it right back, if for some reason you want it listed. It’ll then be set to format as it is at the time you’d do so.)
If you had space before/after that actually came from your “no style” body text’s formatting, and that space is removed by the layout’s formatting at compile but you want that space before and/or after for paragraphs of your “Quote” style, make sure that your style has that space set for itself.
And now that I think of it, your style needs to include paragraph formatting for it to work. A character attributes style won’t do for the spacing, indent, etc.
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Thanks for your helpful response. I made a new style called “Letters” (which is what it’s used for in a novel I’m working on), and it seems to have bypassed what Compile has in mind for “quotes”. It allows paragraph line spaces and I could at least indent the left side; it didn’t want to indent the right side, but it’s good enough for my purposes.
I love Scrivener, but do wish Compile were more intuitive. Learning how to use it better takes me away from the actual writing, and I’ve often resorted to pasting something from Scrivener into Mellel or Pages and generating an epub from there. Expedient, if not ideal.
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I wouldn’t say Compile is intuitive, in part because your “intuition” was probably taught by programs that work differently. But it does have a coherent logic behind it that makes it fairly powerful.
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Not new to a computer, and regularly work with a variety of apps that are more or less deep, or have steep learning curves, so have a pretty good idea of whether the documentation and the way an app works is “intuitive”. But my priorities keep me on a need-to-know basis and I don’t have to generate epubs from within Scrivener very often, so it comes down to a time/cost benefit analysis. I love working in Scrivener in every other respect, and when this happens, it’s the only time I’ll mutter Grrrrrr under my breath.
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Once you are done writing the content, you can totally move to another app you are more comfortable with for the final formatting.
Just be aware that you won’t then be able to move back and forth between the apps. Once you migrate, you can’t really go back without the loss of what you have done since. So, pick your moment wisely.
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Thanks. I usually copy and paste the whole chapter back in so I don’t miss anything. And I use Snapshots faithfully, so when I do have occasion to copy something back into Scrivener, I “View Changes on Copyholder” to check it, and use keystrokes to restore any formatting quickly. Also use keystrokes to Zap Gremlins, remove extra spaces and extra line spaces, correct all quote marks and run spellcheck. Might be easier ways to do this, but so far it’s working well enough; it’s a big book, and I’ve been at it for a while, so it’s become routine.
Compile “Wizards” would be very, very helpful
Even a json style config file.