I’ve been reading and trying everything available in the manual and forum, and came to the conclusion that what I want to do is not possible… Please tell me I’m wrong? I feel like this should be simple but I cannot get it to work.
I want to have 2 title pages (it can be a single document with or without page breaks) without page numbers when I compile to DOCX, followed by multiple single page documents (with page breaks between each document) with roman page numbers, followed by the main text body with regular page numbers. Mainly something like this:
Front matter
Title page 1 (no page #)
Title page 2 (no page #)
Abstract (p.i)
Table of contents (p.ii)
Main text
Introduction (p.1)
Chapter 1 (p.16)
Chapter 2 (p.38)
etc… (p.99)
I can’t make it happen. I got the roman numbers on all Front matter pages, and regular numbers on the Main text. But I can’t get what I want on the Title pages, which is NO page number…
I’ve assigned the title pages & single page documents to Front matter, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to treat the Title pages differently than the other Front matter documents… Playing with the Page settings doesn’t work, because I do want some single pages to have page numbers (Abstract, Table of contents…), and I want to use Page breaks for these as well…
Sorry if my question/details don’t make sense, I’m new to Scrivener.
Any idea how I can structure my project to get what I want?
You are not the first and only one.
As best as I can remember, the answer to your issue is : compile those pages apart and reattach them to the whole in another (more flexible) software.
I might be wrong, but I am pretty certain Scrivener can’t handle it.
There are a few conditions you can set for whether a page is numbered or not, like skipping page numbering for X first pages (not sure it works inside the front matter) and other conditions I forgot everything about, perhaps with some “gymnastics” what you want is achievable, but it sure ain’t simple.
The thread I remember being active in a while ago ended up with a solution so twisted that I am almost happy I managed to forget most of it.
If you see me somewhere saying I expected first pages and front matter to be two seperate things, that’s the thread I’m talking about.
Note that the thing here is that Scrivener was originally developed as a content manager/developer (a software to compose in – and it serves that purpose just awesomely) more than a final output software.
Features were added over time, but writing rather than final formatting is the number 1 purpose of the app.
This solution, although not super elegant, is easy enough I guess…
So I just moved the Title pages to Back matter (as I don’t need it for anything else), so I can just bring them back at the beginning of my document after it’s been compiled…
I did find the other thread you were referring to:
Interesting read. Helps me understand better the limitations.
Right. I guess I was expecting to get a fully formatted product after compiling, which won’t be the case. But these are minor things that can easily be tweaked in Word afterwards.
Awesome software nonetheless!!!
@Guylaine - I found the “treat front-matter as end-matter” guidance kinda odious, so instead I make sure my compliled output injects page breaks.
In Scrivener,
Open the compile dialog, double-click on the output format you are using.
Select Separators in the left column; select the layout you use for your chapters. Make sure Separator before sections setting specifies “Page Break”
Optional (if appropriate): select Section Layout on the left column; select the layout you use for your chapters. Select the New Pages tab in the ribbon. Check the Always start section on checkbox and select “Recto” page. [This uses MS Word’s “Insert Section Break (Odd Page)” section break, which will make sure your chapters start on the right-hand page.]
Then to change the page number behavior using MS Word (for Mac via Office 365) all I need to do is double-click on a header (or footer) in the section I want to customize, click the Page Number widget on the ribbon, and select Format Page Numbers… - then I can customize as needed. You’ll want to change the format for the prologue, and don’t forget to also edit the section where your book actually starts to restart numbering so your Roman numeral sections starts at “1”.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I already have page breaks before each chapter. But I also need page breaks before each section in Front matter (Abstract, Table of content, etc…). So I would need to change the page formatting in Word for every single section in Front matter… (I listed only Abstract and TOC here for simplicity, but in fact I have about 10 different sections in Front matter, all starting with a page break…). That would be too cumbersome.
Interestingly, trying out what you suggest made me realize that what is called « page break » in Scrivener is actually « section break » once in Word? But if Scrivener truly injected a Page break instead of a Section break, your method might work.
If I understand you correctly, you want the page numbers for all of the sections in the front matter numbered as a single count using Roman numerals, and then the bulk of your book with another count using Arabic numerals? If that’s your goal, perhaps you could tell Scrivener to export the whole thing using Roman numerals (which will get the front matter correct), and then just change the main content per above to restart numbering and to use Arabic numerals?
