Writing a LitRPG and trying to do a test compile. Randomly, everything after a certain point is bold faced. Heading 2 also keeps defaulting to some “Sitka” font I have never used in my life (And after living in Sitka for three and a half years I’d rather not be reminded that the place even exists, thanks.")
This text is bold faced 13pt Times New Roman. I assigned this to the “Heading 2” slot, but “Heading 2”, even after being deleted and created from scratch, keeps resetting to that damn “Sitka” font. The compile is adding underlining never put in as well.
I need to get this sorted out before I write 250 pages of manuscript that has to be manually reformatted line by line.
So far this has consumed two hours of my writing time and I’m past frustrated and heading into “Why did I buy three versions of this software, again?” territory.
Any help would be appreciated.
Hi.
• What format are you compiling to ? (Docx ; RTF ; … ?)
(You should run a compile to a different format than the one you’ve been compiling to so far, and see if the issue is still present. Try RTF [Scrivener’s native format] if that isn’t your previous “compile to” format. – Please report on this.)
• What app are you looking at the compiled result in ?
• Are you sure the issue starts at a random point of your test compiles ?
• Any pattern you could see ? (Like, always from the beginning of a document, for example.)
• Did you at some point copy/paste content from the web or elsewhere as is into your project ?
• Are there tables in your project ? (Now or at some point in the past.)
• Do you know how to access the compile format designer, and have you tweaked your compile format in the past ?
If not, what compile format are you using ?
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I have compiled to several formats with no change. I went back and manually stripped all style information and it seems I cannot used styles because they are bugged and unusable. Even simple things like setting “Heading 1” to a specific weight and size of font compiles with whatever the original weight and font is. It’s like Scrivener is absolutely ignoring the user input.
When all style is removed and it says “no style” in the drop down box I can boldface, italicize, etc and it compiles the way I want it to.
The error begins at the same place in each compiled document and remains boldfaced through the end of the document.
I am looking at the compiled document in the application associated with that output: LibreOffice for docx/ODT files, Edge/Acrobat Reader for PDF, etc. The only time this is not happening is if I output to TXT, which is functionally useless as TXT doesn’t have text formatting.
What compile format, in the list on the left side of the compiler, are you compiling with?
Styles are very usable, btw (I use them profusely, well beyond official recommendation). I think you are not using them quite right, in the sense that they are designed to do things you currently are unaware of.
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As previously stated, I have compiled in docx, txt, and PDF formats. The way this particular bug is presenting, styles are anything BUT usable and I’m not really sure how someone can use a style “not quite right.”
Any attempt to highlight text and click “style” causes the compiled format to disregard my style settings completely. For example, I have saved “Heading 1” to Times New Roman, centered, bold faced, 24pt. This should not be difficult. It’s a typeset that’s been used digitally since the 1980s.
What is outputted after compiling is a non-serif, non-centered, non-bold faced Ariel-style font.
This is a slightly different issue than the fact that everything after what I’ve selected and chosen to be “Heading 2” is bold faced, while “Heading 2” is supposed to be a 13pt, left justified, bold font and is somehow in the compiled output is also underlined.
I have manually removed all styles. Whether I can use them going forward depends on follow up from L&L about this bug. So far I have not received any actual recommendations on settings, adjustments, or workflow I can try, so all my formatting has had to be done individually on each line, instead of “Click… go.” It’s very frustrating.
I have hinted at a highly probable cause/answer. It is where I was going.
This above, that you said, is where you need to dig.
Take an hour away from your project.
Chill a bit.
Come back without your frustration.
Sit in the passenger seat and let go of the steering wheel, we’ll have most of your issue – if not the whole of it – fixed in no time.
Else, consider my previous reply to be my last contribution.
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I’m sorry, is there a way to use styles other than highlighting the text and using the drop down menu to select a style? Please explain how I am using them “not quite right.” I look forward to learning.
Styles that are referenced in a compile format have their formatting frozen out and it overrides any formatting those styles may have in your project.
You need to go in the compile format you are using [list in the left column of the compile panel, double-click the compile format you use, “duplicate and edit”], and in the styles tab, clear the list of styles. In your case, you may delete them all from the list. After that, the styles will work properly.
[EDIT – They were already working properly. Here by "properly" I meant "the way you want them to".]
This is because they are/were not “your styles” ; they come with the template.
You can run a test to confirm it first if you want, just redefine your problematic style as you’ve done many times, but this time add whatever (“x”) at the end of the name (change only that), and it’ll work just fine from there on.
Because the name is now different, there will no longer be an override at compile.
As for your bold text issue, I think it is something else. Perhaps you’ve reformatted text of a style in the editor, rather than having it “no style” ?
It may also be due to your section type assignation in combination with the compile format you use. Check that the problematic documents are assigned the same section type (inspector, general metadata) as your documents that compile fine.
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Thank you. This is helpful advice. One thing to point out, though, is that even the styles that came with Scrivener were not compiling the way they show in the editor.
I believe I have tracked the boldfacing problem to copy and paste from an ODT file. Why “Paste and patch formatting” and “strip formatting” did not adequately clear the style flags is almost as confusing as how random lines were underlined, but when I went back and stripped the style from the text BEFORE copying and pasting it into Scrivener, it resolved the problem.
I know that Word and LibreOffice Writer stick a bunch of style and formatting information into their text when you copy and paste it. (Drove me crazy trying to use it for my master’s program. Every time I wrote a forum response in Word I had to copy it into notepad, remove the junk, and then copy it into the forum.) I am certain that is what the problem was here, and am now only puzzled why “remove formatting” didn’t.
Thank you for the clarification. My beta readers were complaining about the character records pulling them out of the story, so having clearly delineated beginnings and endings for those that can be skipped past is important.
The next challenge I’ll be facing is adding a PDF file within a document. I’m not sure if I can even explain exactly what I want using Scrivener terms, but…
Text, words, story, etc.
PDF file displayed here
Return to story.
I’m sure this is something I can find in the documentation once I figure out the exact words to look for. Help files are great as long as you know what you don’t know.
I do appreciate the help, Vincent. I’ve lost a great deal of writing time this last couple of weeks fighting with software tools, up to and including ChatGPT not being able to do simple proofreading tasks because for some reason it stopped accessing its Files tool. I’m about 7,000 words behind where I wanted to be, but you’ve at least put me back on the road. Thanks.
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Yes. This is expected, as it is defined per compile format.
Sometimes just a tiny leftover forgotten bit (user error) is enough to mess things up.
(Also, remove formatting, whatever app this is in, quite possibly is not really doing it as it is needed by Scrivener.)
ALWAYS use Paste and Match Style right off the start when pasting foreign content.
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Yes. This is expected, as it is defined per compile format.
I can’t be the only person to get sandyassed about the fact that the styles he picked didn’t compile looking anywhere near what he wanted. I mean, especially for people who came from WYSIWYG editors like Word or even Evernote, “I picked this font, so I expect the output to be in this font,” is fairly universal and reasonable. Even if someone uses the default styles built into the application, what they chose should be the look they get.
What am I missing here?
ALWAYS use Paste and Match Style right off the start when pasting foreign content.
Yeah, I was. somewhere there was a style flag that wasn’t clearing. That’s why I was editing the styles in the list to match what I wanted to use.
I agree. (You are not the first one.)
I am of the opinion that perhaps factory compile formats should have their styles list blank.
(But then it would cause other problems. Perhaps as it is now is the best possible setup. (?) There is no perfect solution other than doing whatever can be done so that the users know what’s what and what’s going on – the interactive tutorial and the manual.)
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Any thoughts on the PDF insertion? I think I can do it if I make BEFORE PDF a document, insert the PDF as a middle document, and then AFTER PDF is its own document, but right now I’m kind of making each chapter its own document in the binder.
No big deal if you aren’t sure. I’ll find it somewhere.
Make that a new thread.
Glad that for now you have your issues sorted out. 
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Oh god no, Vincent. I have so many issues…
