I’m using the Scrivener Windows 64bit beta version 2.9.0.29
Does anybody know if there are any plans to add a text transformation to turn all " – " into " — " and otherwise clean up messy em-dashes?
I tried doing a find+replace for it but it wouldn’t let me (all of the options were grayed out…), and I didn’t see the option in the compiler.
There not being any way to clean up em dashes that get pasted in seems like a bug?
I’ve just tested finding (ctl-f) – to replace with an em-dash and it works with no problem, so the first thing to check is that your focus is in an editor – if it’s in the Binder, then the buttons will be greyed out. ctl-f only works if you’re in the editor (or some of the Inspector panels).
But for something like this, you’re probably better off using Edit > Find > Project Replace, which gives you control over which parts of the project you want to search. Again, it should find and replace – with an em-dash with no problem.
You can also use Compile to do it: when you look at the initial compilation screen, you see three sections across the top: “Formats”, “Section Layouts” and a row of four (or more) icons. The icon with “ab over ac” is the substitution panel. If you click on that, you should be able to set up the substitution there. (I’ve not actually tested this in the beta though, but that’s where the feature is.) Personally, this is the approach I’d take because you can forget about having to run the Project Replace every time.
(I think the reason that the automatic conversion doesn’t work when you copy in text including – is that the text is copied as a single action, not as as single characters one after each other, so the substitution is never triggered. I could be totally wrong, of course…)
HTH.