Total newbie and desperate to solve this problem!

Hi everyone,

I’m totally new to Scrivener and was wondering if anyone knew how to correct the following problem?

Basically, having opened the .mobi (that I compiled and exported from Scrivener) in the Kindle app, if I resize the window (i.e make it narrower), the text kind of… unformats itself and goes on different lines so that on one line will be one word, but then there will be 11 on the next!

All the text is justified (unless this is being overwritten in the compile stage) and I don’t know if it requires any coding, or what I can do.

I have tried to be as succinct as possible, but just struggling to get the text to stay in place, irrespective of how wide or narrow I make the window.

Thanks!

It sounds like there are manual line breaks in there, but hard to be sure without seeing the text.

If you “show invisibles” in Scrivener, do you see a little symbol that looks like this: ⏎

Note: I’ve never compiled to .mobi so I’m basing this on what I know of text in other formats. I’m sure others will chime in…

Hey,

I see symbols that look a bit like }. I’m sure you might know the ones I mean, but I can’t seem to get them to show up on here.

Do you think this might be the problem? And if so, is it easily rectifiable?

Thanks!

I don’t know what invisible symbol that might be, but all you should see in a typical paragraph are dots that represent spaces and a backwards P with two vertical bars instead of one (end-of-paragraph symbol).

Can you select the } ‘invisible’ symbol? If so, then you can fix this in Scrivener thusly:

  • Make a backup of your project, in case things go horribly awry. (File->Backup->Back up to…).
  • Select one of the }-like invisible symbols and copy it
  • Bring up the project replace tool (Edit->Find->Project Replace)
  • In the “Replace” field, paste in the invisible symbol
  • Leave the “With” field blank
  • Make sure that ONLY the “Text” checkbox is checked
  • Click the “Replace” button
  • View your manuscript in Scrivenings mode and OPT-down-arrow through it, fixing problematic line formatting as you spot it. Make the editor narrower, and repeat for good measure.

Is it this the symbol: ¶ ?
If you want to geek out, it’s called a pilcrow and represents a paragraph break (you can type the symbol on a Mac by pressing Opt-7 (i.e. hold down the option key while you press the “7” key).
The symbol I posted the other day, ⏎ , is the return symbol and typically used to represent a line break.
Both symbols indicate that subsequent text is to be written the next line, with the pilcrow providing the added instruction that it’s a new paragraph.

Thank you so much to those who have replied. Robertdguthrie, you solved the problem! Cannot thank you enough!