Text is invisible until style changes

I began a project in LibreOffice and created a complex system of Outline Headings and Formats which worked but was time consuming and got in the way of writing. Then I discovered that Scrivener could do it all. Converting has taken a while but most of my work (~90,000 words) and their formatting convert well. One section, however, is invisible.

What happens is this:

I open the project but one section is blank.

The blank section is extremely large; even at 1% zoom it takes multiple screens to accommodate a mere 601 words of 12 pt font over 60 lines.

I then “Select All”.

Next I change the style (it doesn’t matter what) and the hidden text appears.

I then “Deselect All” and experience a feeling of relief.


Finally I save the project but alas, when I re-open it the same section is blank

I have tried “Selecting All” and changing the line spacing and font/highlight colors but nothing happens.

Help…

What did you change your Style to, or did it change to Notes -… on import?
I could recommend that you change it to No Style, but then you’re going to destroy all your bullets. And if it’s 90k words of bullets, then it’s not a good solution.
Play around in the Styles Panel highlighting a single bulleted line, firstly defining it as a new Style and work it from there. When it works, apply it to all your bulleted work.
The only thing is, you’re not able to implement bullets with Styles, in my experience, since Styles will apply the spacing, fonts, etc. but not the bullets. I do it by applying bullets, then applying a required Styles.
The again: All your work seems to be in a single document, so rebulleting your entire word count shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.
The quick and dirty is: highlight a line, select No Style, click Bullet, apply font and spacing. If happy, do it to the rest of the content.

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I don’t remember what style was used in LibreOffice. In Scrivener it is No Style with bullets. I can make the text appear by selecting it and changing the style. Selecting it alone does not make it visible. It becomes visible when I change it to another style. Any style will work. The bullets remain no matter what style I use.

The issue is that when I close and re-open the project the text becomes invisible again. .

What is the style/property/circumstance which makes text invisible?

I just noticed that when the text is invisible, the bullets are still visible and are an appropriate size for 12 pt type. The spacing between consecutive bullets, however, which should be 1.1x with 2.75 pt, is instead about 12 inches (a 24" monitor isn’t large enough to show 2 consecutive bullets).

Text has no transparancy attribute, so the only option is that the text has the same color as the background.

You could Cut and Paste the text, maybe via Notepad or try Edit > Zap gremlings…

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In your last two slides your paragraph Style is “Notes - …”.
That style is not among the default options in Scrivener.
EDIT: A rudimentary search of your font (Liberation Serif) says it’s a default used by Libre Office, which supports the theory that your style was pulled in from there.

As I indicated, highlight a piece and Select No Style from the dropdown–it’s a quick and easy instead of racking your brain. Your Scrivener default should automatically be standard text that renders black—though don’t set the colour to black else you’ll pick up hassles when using dark mode.
You could select your entire file content: Click in the editor, select Ctrl+A.
Copy: Crtl+C.
Open a new file and use Edit > Paste and Match Style.
Then reapply your bullets.
You won’t lose anything this way but have 2 copies. If that’s the answer, delete the source file in Scrivener.

No such command in Windows. You could say we don’t have gremlins. :wink:

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I have created test projects by “Saving As” my problem project and deleting the non-bullet sections. I now believe that my problem lies in a new project I created which only contains my custom styles. I did this so that I could maintain consistent styles across multiple projects. The “invisible text” problem does not appear until I import my styles. I will have to see which one(s) is responsible.

Two thing about the text are odd:

  1. When I select the text by dragging across it, it does not highlight (if it did, the underlying text would appear as white/grey on a blue background.) but the text at the bottom of the screen says it has been selected.
  2. If I select the text and then apply a different color via the color picker, it does not appear. The problem does not seem to be grey text on a grey background. I realize that although Scrivener does not have a transparency attribute, this text is acting as if it does.

I regret that I will be away for the next 2 weeks. Please look for my updates at that time.