Greetings! I’m trying to determine whether I have an issue with my version of Scrivener running on Yosemite, or if table functionality is really so broken as to be almost useless. On Windows I can set the size of columns using percentage instead of pixels, and I can select a column by clicking on the first row and dragging down. This lets me do something like set all of the text in a column to center justified. If I have a table at the top of a page I can left-arrow to the beginning and press to add empty lines before the table.
None of this works on OSX. I cannot add lines above a table at the top of a page, and attempting to select a column results in selecting everything left-to right and top-to-bottom from the start and stop cells. I have to click each cell and set text styling separately, which is ridiculous to say the least.
Is the App-Store version for OS X just braindead compared to the Windows version, or do I have some kind of special problem? If tables are really this broken it almost makes Scrivener a no-go for me and that’s a shame because I like the app and paid for it on both platforms. It would also be sad if the company let Mac users suffer while it chases Windows users.
Actually, the Mac version is several years ahead the Windows version. You can read about the most relevant details on this thread.
Tables, OTOH, have several restrictions on both platforms, since they are provided by the underlying text engine (which is different on each platform) and not via a specific development from L&L. You can read some history and future ideas here.
However, you can do mostly the same operations on both environments, it’s just that sometimes the command are different. Try the right-click menu for specific options and commands.
Ugh. OK, so the issues that I’m having are for the most part just the way it works. I do seem to have hit a real bug though, in that I made a text item and created a table at the top of it. I need to put a paragraph above the table but cannot. On OS X I cannot move the cursor “outside” the table to hit enter and place a blank line above it. That seems more like a Scrivener bug than a deficiency in tables. I need to cut the table, add text and paste the table back.
Thanks again for the information. I don’t have any issues at all with the Windows version, it’s only when I try to work on these documents at home on my Mac that things go sideways. I’ll have to come up with a Plan B.