Synopsis and screenplays

[jwnelson]

I’ve reviewed the documentation for the screenplay formating aspect of Scrivener and can’t find anything that says that compiling the synopsis only is “turned off.” Did some experimenting. Below are my compile settings. As you can see, I have “Synopsis” checked and, if you scroll right, you will see there is text in the synopsis card:

When I compile “preview” (or compile to PDF), I get what you see below – the contents of the notes but not the synopsis.

Here is a snapshot of the binder contents in this test case:

So, should I assume that compiling only the synopsis is not possible when using screenplay formatting? (which would be a real drag). Or is this a bug?
thanks!
JohnN

[AmberV]

Just out of curiosity, do any of those checkboxes do anything? If you turn them all on or all of, for instance does nothing change? If so, check the Contents compile option pane and make sure nothing is set to Compile As-Is.

[jwnelson]

@AmberV

Just out of curiosity, do any of those checkboxes do anything? If you turn them all on or all of, for instance does nothing change? If so, check the Contents compile option pane and make sure nothing is set to Compile As-Is.

Thanks! The synopsis info is “in” each note. And, since it’s a screenplay, “compile as-is” is standard, right? Scroll one of the first two attached images to the right to see the settings.
Based on testing a variety of checkbox settings, I either get a blank preview window (or pdf) or one that simply shows the notes’ script contents.
JohnN

[almansur]

Printing synopses works for me.
Note that I have the Override text and notes formatting checkbox checked.
I think that checkbox is essentially a global override of editor settings and is the usual way to use the Compiler.
Also, unless you really need to pass editor formatting through the compiler I’d not use General Meta-Data’s Compile As-Is checkbox. A quick way to turn those off is to use the Outline view and Alt-click one checkbox. You may have to enable viewing the as-is column.

[jwnelson]

@almansur

Printing synopses works for me.
Note that I have the Override text and notes formatting checkbox checked.
I think that checkbox is essentially a global override of editor settings and is the usual way to use the Compiler.
Also, unless you really need to pass editor formatting through the compiler I’d not use General Meta-Data’s Compile As-Is checkbox. A quick way to turn those off is to use the Outline view and Alt-click one checkbox. You may have to enable viewing the as-is column.

Thanks! I will give all that a try!

[AmberV]

Yeah, you don’t need Compile As-Is in most cases. That’s a speciality feature that lets you override any overrides in the compiler. For instance you might have the compiler set up to change the font in every document to Times New Roman with left aligned paragraphs. This obviously wouldn’t be a desirable override for something like a title page or a table of contents section. So As-Is comes in handy for cases like these. For projects where format override isn’t used (like scriptwriting, where the formatting is already done), there is rarely a need for As-Is.

As-Is, as you might guess by now, also forces the Text content to print no matter what, and nothing else. So even if the checkboxes say Synopsis and Title should compile, they won’t, just the editor contents.

[jwnelson]

@almansur

Printing synopses works for me.
… Also, unless you really need to pass editor formatting through the compiler I’d not use General Meta-Data’s Compile As-Is checkbox. A quick way to turn those off is to use the Outline view and Alt-click one checkbox. You may have to enable viewing the as-is column.

I’m not sure what you mean by use the outline view and alt-click on checkbox. Do you mean alt-click the “compile as-is” checkbox? That only turns “compile as-is” on/off for for outline element. Or are you talking about during the compile step?
Thanks!

EDIT: Okay, now I understand. Use the alt-click in the compile step to turn “as-is” off/on.

[jwnelson]

@AmberV

Yeah, you don’t need Compile As-Is in most cases. That’s a speciality feature that lets you override any overrides in the compiler. For instance you might have the compiler set up to change the font in every document to Times New Roman with left aligned paragraphs. This obviously wouldn’t be a desirable override for something like a title page or a table of contents section. So As-Is comes in handy for cases like these. For projects where format override isn’t used (like scriptwriting, where the formatting is already done), there is rarely a need for As-Is.

As-Is, as you might guess by now, also forces the Text content to print no matter what, and nothing else. So even if the checkboxes say Synopsis and Title should compile, they won’t, just the editor contents.

Thanks! But I’ll need “compile as-is” for when I compile the screenplay into, say, an RTF file for modification in a dedicated screenplay application, right?

[AmberV]

Unless you are doing something I am not anticipating, you shouldn’t need it. Think of it this way, all “As-Is” does is tell the compiler to not touch the formatting in the editor and just print the text without any modifications (like adding title or synopsis). If your compile settings are not touching the formatting in the first place, which they shouldn’t be with script formatting, then there is no need for a special-case flag like “As-Is”. The only time you need that is if a section in your binder is “special”, standing out from hundreds of other scenes or sections as having unique formatting that must be preserved. There would never be a reason to have the entire draft set to As-Is, because if that is what you want, you can just switch off all of the stuff that As-Is protects a section from in the first place.

[jwnelson]

@AmberV

Unless you are doing something I am not anticipating, you shouldn’t need it. Think of it this way, all “As-Is” does is tell the compiler to not touch the formatting in the editor and just print the text without any modifications (like adding title or synopsis). If your compile settings are not touching the formatting in the first place, which they shouldn’t be with script formatting, then there is no need for a special-case flag like “As-Is”. The only time you need that is if a section in your binder is “special”, standing out from hundreds of other scenes or sections as having unique formatting that must be preserved. There would never be a reason to have the entire draft set to As-Is, because if that is what you want, you can just switch off all of the stuff that As-Is protects a section from in the first place.

Thanks very much! The compile process is still one of my areas.

Do you suggest that, in general, leaving the meta-data “compile as-is” unchecked is a good protocol (except for such circumstances as you describe above) because you can also control that globally inside the compile step?

[AmberV]

That’s a fantastic emoticon.

Yes the idea is flexibility. You can achieve the same effect by using As-Is by turning off the override text formatting checkbox in the Formatting pane, and select “Text” for all three types and nothing else. That is what “As-Is” would be. Since you can do that so easily with the settings, it’s better to do it in the settings because you might at other times, like now, want Synopsis as well. Then all you have to do is check off some Synopsis buttons and you’re done. If you use As-Is to emulate these settings, you’d have to undo all of that to get the compile settings to a place where you can print synopses.

[jwnelson]

@AmberV

That’s a fantastic emoticon.

Yes the idea is flexibility. You can achieve the same effect by using As-Is by turning off the override text formatting checkbox in the Formatting pane, and select “Text” for all three types and nothing else. That is what “As-Is” would be. Since you can do that so easily with the settings, it’s better to do it in the settings because you might at other times, like now, want Synopsis as well. Then all you have to do is check off some Synopsis buttons and you’re done. If you use As-Is to emulate these settings, you’d have to undo all of that to get the compile settings to a place where you can print synopses.

Excellent advice!